 | |
| 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 30 November 2023 The Daily Squib editor, Aur Esenbel interviewed former Conservative Party UK MP Ann Widdecombe [17] on the subject of Brexit including the threat of Brexit being reversed if the Labour Party UK was voted in at the 2024 United Kingdom general election. Widdecombe's answer to the question of Labour's "threat" to Brexit was a simple "Yes".
On 18 December 2023 The Daily Squib editor, Aur Esenbel interviewed [18] former Conservative Party Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Norman Lamont of Lerwick on the subject of Brexit and his stance in the House of Lords preserving the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum as well as the multiple problems encountered with the UK's ongoing relationship with the European Union.
On 27 December 2023 The Daily Squib editor, Aur Esenbel, a guitarist himself and long-time listener interviewed [19] iconic guitarist Steve Vai on his "career and spirit related subjects". When asked about his legendary composition For the Love of God (instrumental) an excerpt of Vai's reply displays his deep appreciation of spiritual matters relating to his music, life and death: "Humans do not have souls, they are soul. That is actually all we are. We are not our past, or our name, the thoughts in our head or even our body."
On 11 July 2017, after ten years online, The Daily Squib satirical article "Ku Klux Klan Endorses Obama" [20] 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 [21] citing the "loss of freedom of speech", "censorship of satire", and how Google had "completely misunderstood the premise of the satirical article". [22]
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. [23]
The Daily Squib, Editor, Aur Esenbel, was chosen as a jury member for the 2020, PHNX Tribute., [24] 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. [25] According to the publisher Curtis Press, [26] 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."
Satire is a very powerful literary genre and is often prophetic: the Daily Squib has often accurately predicted actual events. [27]
Among the eminent examples are:
Ann Noreen Widdecombe is a British politician and television personality who has been Reform UK's Immigration and Justice spokesperson since 2023. Originally a member of the Conservative Party, she was Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone and The Weald, and the former Maidstone constituency, from 1987 to 2010. She was a member of the Brexit Party from 2019 until it was renamed Reform UK in 2021, and served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South West England from 2019 to 2020; she rejoined Reform UK in 2023.
The Ku Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is the name of an American white supremacist, far-right hate group. Various historians have characterized the Klan as America's first terrorist group. There have been three distinct iterations with various targets relative to time and place, including African Americans, Jews, and Catholics.
Michael Henry Schwerner was an American civil rights activist. He was one of three Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) field workers killed in rural Neshoba County, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Schwerner and two co-workers, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, were killed in response to their civil rights work, which included promoting voting registration among African Americans, most of whom had been disenfranchised in the state since 1890.
David Curtis "Steve" Stephenson was an American Ku Klux Klan leader, convicted rapist and murderer. In 1923 he was appointed Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan and head of Klan recruiting for seven other states. Later that year, he led those groups to independence from the national KKK organization. Amassing wealth and political power in Indiana politics, he was one of the most prominent national Klan leaders. He had close relationships with numerous Indiana politicians, especially Governor Edward L. Jackson.
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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.
William Joseph Simmons was an American preacher and fraternal organizer who founded and led the second Ku Klux Klan from Thanksgiving evening 1915 until being ousted in 1922 by Hiram Wesley Evans.
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 Imperial 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.
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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.
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.
Rory M. McVeigh is an American sociologist, Nancy Reeves Dreux Chair professor of sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Social Movements and former chair (2007-2016) of the department of sociology at the University of Notre Dame. From 2015 through 2020 he served as one of the lead editors of the American Sociological Review, the flagship journal of the American Sociological Association. He is widely cited in the field of social movements, particularly right-wing movements. He also edited the academic journal Mobilization from 2008 through 2015 and is the current the co-editor of the academic blog Mobilizing Ideas.
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