 | |
| Type | Daily Satire |
|---|---|
| Editor | Aur Esenbel |
| Founded | 1 April 2007 |
| Headquarters | London, England |
| Website | dailysquib |
The Daily Squib is a British satirical online publication created by satire writer Aur Esenbel, [1] that was officially launched on April Fool's Day, 2007. Its coverage extends across world politics, science, technology, business, sports and health.
On 7 February 2008, The Daily Squib published a spoof article in which it was claimed that the Ku Klux Klan had chosen to endorse Barack Obama in the 2008 US Presidential elections in order to avoid the election of Hillary Clinton. [2] The spoof was misinterpreted by some readers as a factual article, and quickly became a widely circulated internet rumour that was discussed in articles by Reuters and The Times (London). [3] [4] An article in the Tampa Bay Times subsequently reported that the Ku Klux Klan had been repeatedly contacted with requests to verify their stance regarding The Daily Squib's story. [5] And in April 2008, American rapper Snoop Dogg re-circulated the rumour generated by the Daily Squib story in an interview with The Guardian. [6]
On 3 February 2009, The Daily Squib published a humorous article satirizing the UK's helpless response to prolonged snowfall in February 2009. The spoof article claimed that Hitler had planned to use 'snow zeppelins' as weapons of attack in order 'to disrupt Britain's ability to function'. [7]
On 4 August 2010, The Daily Squib published a spoof article detailing the exploits of a masturbating Transportation Security Administration official and a full body X-ray scanner. The satirical story drew considerable attention, such that the TSA ultimately issued a public statement denying that the incident had occurred on their blog. [8]
A Daily Squib story satirizing an interview with former United States Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger first published on 27 November 2011 was cited as a factual story by flagship Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram , [9] on 16 September 2012. The Daily Squib Kissinger satire, was also mentioned by former John Major era Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont on 6 March 2012 in the New Statesman. [10]
On 19 October 2012 a Daily Squib article [11] which featured a fake EU poster that contained the Soviet hammer and sickle symbol was mistaken for a real EU poster by the Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan. [12]
The Daily Squib editor, Aur Esenbel, was interviewed [13] for award winning magazine, The Big Issue , published on 23 November 2018. The article discussed the variance in fake news and satire. Esenbel elucidated readers about the Daily Squib's literary style: “The tone is Juvenalian satire, that is to say, it is harder hitting than the jolly harmless Horatian kind, which is prevalent in so many other sites.”
On 3 February 2023 Reuters news agency fact-checked [14] a quote attributed to veteran U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger on controlling the food supply to control people is true. “Control oil and you control nations. Control foods and you control the people,” is a quote spread across the internet as millions of viral memes. Jessee LePorin, Press Officer for Kissinger told Reuters that he “has never said that quotation or anything like it on any social media or anywhere else.” The earliest iteration Reuters could identify dates to 2011, when the quotation appeared as part of a satirical interview [15] by The Daily Squib a site that describes itself as “the rock star of all news and satire” [16] on its About page.
On 11 July 2017, after ten years online, The Daily Squib satirical article "Ku Klux Klan Endorses Obama" [17] was pulled off the site after Google demanded the article be removed or The Daily Squib would lose its advertising. The editor of The Daily Squib, Aur Esenbel replied [18] citing the "loss of freedom of speech", "censorship of satire", and how Google had "completely misunderstood the premise of the satirical article". [19]
On 12 April 2024, The Sun (United Kingdom) published an exclusive article "VLAD'S TACKLE Brit Magazine sent death threats after joking that Vladimir Putin has tiny todger" [20] revealing that staff members of the Daily Squib had been threatened with real violence after a publication of a satirical article claiming Russian leader, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine because he suffered from micropenis syndrome.
The Daily Squib editor Aur Esenbel said: “Like all satirical news outlets, The Daily Squib is no stranger to criticism and the odd ‘strongly worded email’. “But in the last couple of years, the hate mail has intensified and transformed into physical, credible threats to our staff that we simply cannot ignore.” [21]
The Daily Squib, was chosen alongside well-known industry journals such as Adweek , Campaign magazine, Creative Review to be one of the jurors with jury president Spencer Baim, Chief Strategic officer at Vice Media for the globally acclaimed 2017 Epica Awards showcasing creativity in advertising, film and design. [22]
The Daily Squib, Editor, Aur Esenbel, was chosen as a jury member for the 2020, PHNX Tribute., [23] a celebration of individual creatives and teams within the creative industry.
On 21 August 2022 The Daily Squib, Editor, Aur Esenbel, announced in an article on the website of the publication of the new book. [24] According to the publisher Curtis Press, [25] The Daily Squib Anthology From 2007 to 2022 will be published on Paperback, A4, greyscale, 138 pages on 1 October 2022. Quotes from the book's description acknowledge the history of The Daily Squib throughout its 15-year tenure on the internet: "As the follies and absurdities of the powerful are destroying the world through war, pandemic, and climate change, what better time to release The Daily Squib: Anthology from 2007 to 2022? Over the last 15 years, the Squib has held a crazy distorted fairground mirror to global events. Sometimes its spoofs have even been mistaken for real news—what higher accolade is there for a satirist? Its mock report on the Ku Klux Klan declaring its support for Barack Obama in the 2008 US elections and its fake interview with Henry Kissinger (2011) fooled “serious” outlets across the world. More than that, the Squib has somehow become an unholy satirical oracle by predicting an EU army 5 years before anyone else was talking about it and, in 2018, the COVID-19 pandemic, even pinpointing “somewhere in Asia” as the source. Though like lots of other good things this has been overlooked by the mainstream media, the Squib has played an innovative role in shaping internet-based comedy since 2007 and has fought hard for free speech in a climate of increasing puritanism on both the political left and right."
The Ku Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is the name of several historical and current American white supremacist, far-right terrorist organizations and hate groups. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, the Klan was "the first organized terror movement in American history." Their primary targets at various times have been African Americans, Jews, and Catholics.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white supremacist groups, for its classification of hate groups and other extremist organizations, and for promoting tolerance education programs. The SPLC was founded by Morris Dees, Joseph J. Levin Jr., and Julian Bond in 1971 as a civil rights law firm in Montgomery.
Wayne County is a county located in east central Indiana, United States, on the border with Ohio. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 66,553. The county seat is Richmond. Wayne County comprises the Richmond, IN Micropolitan Statistical Area. Richmond hosts Earlham College, a small private liberal arts college.
Zinc is a town near the east-central edge of Boone County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 92 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Harrison Micropolitan Statistical Area. A chapter of the Ku Klux Klan operates in Zinc.
Al-Ahram, founded on 5 August 1876, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second oldest after al-Waqa'i`al-Masriya. It is majority owned by the Egyptian government, and is considered a newspaper of record for Egypt.
The Rhino Times is a conservative news and opinion website covering Guilford County, North Carolina. It was originally founded in 1991 as The Rhinoceros Times. Another print edition was founded in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2002 and discontinued in 2008. The primary newspaper went into hundreds of thousands dollars of debt and ceased publication in 2013, but it was bought by local real estate developer Roy Carroll and reopened later that year. It ceased publication again in 2018, and today is an online-only newspaper.
Stephen Donald Black is an American white supremacist. He is the founder and webmaster of the neo-Nazi, Holocaust denial, and homophobic website Stormfront. He was a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan and a member of the American Nazi Party in the 1970s, though at the time he was a member it was known as the "National Socialist White Peoples' Party". He was convicted in 1981 of attempting an armed overthrow of the government in the island of Dominica in violation of the U.S. Neutrality Act.
The Imperial Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKA) is a white supremacist, white nationalist, neo-Nazi paramilitary organization. Until the late 2000s, it was the second largest Klan group in the United States, and at one point in the early 2000s, it was the largest. In 2008, the IKA was reported to have at least 23 chapters in 17 states, most of which were small.
This is a partial list of notable historical figures in U.S. national politics who were members of the Ku Klux Klan before taking office. Membership of the Klan is secret. Political opponents sometimes allege that a person was a member of the Klan, or was supported at the polls by Klan members.
Thomas Robb is an American white supremacist, Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Christian Identity pastor. He is the National Director of the Knights Party, also known as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, taking control of the organization since the year 1989.
Abie Philbin Bowman is an Irish comedian and journalist. His One Man Shows include Jesus: The Guantanamo Years, Eco-Friendly Jihad and Developing the Country as a Hole. He has worked on RTÉ programmes, including Arena, CAKE, Callan's Kicks and Irish Pictorial Weekly.
The Wisconsin Union Theater is a performing arts center in Madison, Wisconsin, located in the University of Wisconsin–Madison's Memorial Union. Wisconsin Union Theater performances include world stage, concerts, dance, jazz and other special events.
The Good Citizen was a sixteen-page monthly political periodical edited by Bishop Alma White and illustrated by Reverend Branford Clarke. The Good Citizen was published from 1913 until 1933 by the Pillar of Fire Church at their headquarters in Zarephath, New Jersey in the United States. White used the publication to expose "political Romanism in its efforts to gain the ascendancy in the U.S."
The Ku Klux Klan has had a history in the U.S. state of New Jersey since the early part of the 1920s. The Klan was active in the areas of Trenton and Camden and it also had a presence in several of the state's northern counties in the 1920s. It had the most members in Monmouth County, and operated a resort in Wall Township.
Edward Young Clarke was the Imperial Wizard pro tempore of the Ku Klux Klan from 1915 to 1922. Prior to his Klan activities, Clarke headed the Atlanta-based Southern Publicity Association. He later served as the president of Monarch Publishing, a book publishing company.
The New York World's exposé of the Ku Klux Klan brought national media to the operations and actions of the Ku Klux Klan beginning on September 6, 1921. The newspaper published a series of twenty one consecutive daily articles, edited by Herbert Bayard Swope, that discussed numerous aspects of Ku Klux Klan including rituals, recruitment methods, propaganda, and hypocrisies in logic. At least eighteen other newspapers nationwide picked up the coverage, which led to national discourse on the activities of the group. These publications included the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Boston Globe, Pittsburgh Sun, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), New Orleans Times-Picayune, Galveston News, Houston Chronicle, Seattle Times, Milwaukee Journal, Minneapolis Journal, Oklahoma City Oklahoman, Toledo Blade, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, Syracuse Herald, Columbus Enquirer-Sun and the Albany Knickerbocker Press. The New York Times ran ads for the article series to increase exposure, while other large papers like the Baltimore Sun quickly picked up the article series instead of advertising for The World. The Ku Klux Klan announced shortly afterward that it would take legal action against all the publications that ran the article series for libel, seeking total damages of over $10 million. Following the exposé, Klan membership significantly increased.
Where's the Birth Certificate?: The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be President is a book by Jerome Corsi which promotes the false claim that then U.S. president Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen of the United States and was thus constitutionally unqualified to hold the office. The book was released on May 17, 2011, and reached No. 6 on the New York Times list of best-selling hardcover non-fiction books. It has been publicized in politically conservative venues.
The Ku Klux Klan is an organization that expanded operations into Canada, based on the second Ku Klux Klan established in the United States in 1915. It operated as a fraternity, with chapters established in parts of Canada throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. The first registered provincial chapter was registered in Toronto in 1925 by two Americans and a Canadian. The organization was most successful in Saskatchewan, where it briefly influenced political activity and whose membership included a member of Parliament, Walter Davy Cowan.
Nancy K. MacLean is an American historian. She is the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University. MacLean's research focuses on race, gender, labor history and social movements in 20th-century U.S. history, with particular attention to the U.S. South.