# Satire News Scraper Knowhow - Raw Research

> Task: T-mn6utz4q | Hunter Agent | 2026-03-26
> Global Satire News Research for Short Drama Content

---

## Phase 1: Primary Satire Sources (Elite Tier)

### 1.1 The Onion (USA) - ★★★★★

**Website:** https://www.theonion.com
**Founded:** 1988 (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
**Tagline:** "America's Finest News Source"
**Style:** Absurdist realism, deadpan journalism parody

**Content Categories:**
- Politics (political satire, election coverage)
- Local (community-level satirical stories)
- Entertainment (pop culture parodies)
- Breaking News (time-sensitive satirical takes)
- Sports (athletic culture mockery)
- Science & Technology

**RSS Feeds:**
- Main: `https://www.theonion.com/rss.xml`
- Politics: `https://www.theonion.com/politics/rss` (verified working)
- Alternative: `https://www.theonion.com/feed.xml`

**Satirical Techniques:**
1. Deadpan Journalism - Fictional stories in objective news format
2. Absurdist Headlines - Plausible-sounding but ridiculous premises
3. Expert Quotes - Fake interviews with fabricated details
4. Dateline Fabrication - Specific locations for fictional events

**Drama Adaptation Potential:** ★★★★☆

---

### 1.2 ClickHole (USA) - ★★★★★

**Website:** https://www.clickhole.com
**Founded:** 2014 (by The Onion, now owned by Cards Against Humanity)
**Tagline:** Parody of BuzzFeed/Upworthy
**Style:** Viral clickbait satire, absurdist

**Content Formats:**
- Listicles ("20 Facts About...")
- Personality Quizzes ("Which X Are You?")
- Viral Stories (heartwarming parodies)
- ClickVentures (interactive stories)
- Videos

**RSS Feeds:**
- Main: `https://clickhole.com/rss.xml`

**Satirical Techniques:**
1. Bathos - Abrupt shift from serious to mundane
2. Anti-Climax - Headlines promising more than delivered
3. Running Gags - Harrison Ford injuries, J.K. Rowling canon
4. Quiz Absurdity - Personality quizzes with nonsense outcomes

**Drama Adaptation Potential:** ★★★★★

---

### 1.3 The Babylon Bee (USA - Conservative/Christian) - ★★★★☆

**Website:** https://babylonbee.com
**Founded:** 2016
**Tagline:** "Fake News You Can Trust"
**Style:** Christian/conservative political satire

**Content Categories:**
- Politics (American politics, elections)
- Culture (social issues, trends)
- Entertainment (media, celebrities)
- Religion (Christian church satire)
- Sports

**RSS Feeds:**
- Main: `https://babylonbee.com/feed` (WordPress)
- Categories: `/category/politics/feed/`, `/category/culture/feed/`

**Satirical Techniques:**
1. Irony Reversal - Conservative perspective on liberal narratives
2. Exaggerated Headlines - Amplifying political stereotypes
3. Quote Attribution - Fake statements attributed to real figures
4. Slippery Slope - Taking trends to absurd conclusions

**Drama Adaptation Potential:** ★★★☆☆

---

### 1.4 The Hard Times (Punk/Music Subculture) - ★★★★☆

**Website:** https://thehardtimes.net
**Founded:** 2014 by Matt Saincome and Bill Conway
**Tagline:** "A Very Real Punk News Site"
**Style:** Punk/hardcore music scene satire

**Content Categories:**
- Music (punk, hardcore, indie)
- Culture (DIY scene, subculture trends)
- Lifestyle

**RSS Feeds:**
- Main: `https://thehardtimes.net/feed/`

**Satirical Techniques:**
1. Insider Knowledge - References only scene members understand
2. Subculture Exaggeration - Amplifying punk scene tropes
3. DIY Parody - Mocking independent music culture
4. Band Drama - Fake conflicts between musicians

**Drama Adaptation Potential:** ★★★★☆

---

## Phase 2: Niche & Regional Sources

### 2.1 Reductress (Feminist/Women's Magazine) - ★★★★☆

**Website:** https://reductress.com
**Founded:** 2013 by Beth Newell and Sarah Pappalardo
**Tagline:** "The First And Only Satirical Women's Magazine"
**Style:** Women's magazine parody (Cosmo, Jezebel satire)

**Content Formats:**
- Listicles (mocking women's media tropes)
- Advice Columns
- Fake Ads ("Bologna for Her")
- Confessionals
- Dating/Fashion Satire

**RSS Feeds:**
- Main: `https://reductress.com/feed/`

**Satirical Techniques:**
1. Tone Parody - Mimics condescending women's media voice
2. Fear-Based Marketing Satire
3. Clickbait Juxtaposition - Serious topic + trivial treatment
4. Feminine Clichés - Exaggerating "women's interest" stereotypes

**Drama Adaptation Potential:** ★★★★☆

---

### 2.2 McSweeney's Internet Tendency (Literary Humor) - ★★★★★

**Website:** https://www.mcsweeneys.net
**Founded:** 1998 (by Dave Eggers)
**Style:** Literary humor, absurdist lists, open letters

**Content Formats:**
- Open Letters
- Absurdist Lists
- Humor Columns
- Short Satirical Essays

**RSS Feeds:**
- Main: `https://www.mcsweeneys.net/rss.xml`

**Satirical Techniques:**
1. Literary Quality - Higher writing standard
2. Absurdist Lists - Surreal, non-sequitur content
3. Letter Format - "Open Letter to X" structures
4. Over-Intellectualization - Academic analysis of trivial topics

**Drama Adaptation Potential:** ★★★★★

---

### 2.3 The Beaverton (Canada) - ★★★☆☆

**Website:** https://www.thebeaverton.com
**Founded:** 2010
**Tagline:** "Canada's Foremost Satirical News Source"

**RSS Feeds:**
- Main: `https://www.thebeaverton.com/feed/`

**Notable:** Stories often mistaken for real news (Chris Hadfield cellphone roaming fees incident)

---

### 2.4 Other Notable Sources

| Site | Region/Niche | URL | RSS |
|------|--------------|-----|-----|
| The Daily Mash | UK | thedailymash.co.uk | /feed/ |
| NewsThump | UK | newsthump.com | /feed/ |
| Private Eye | UK | private-eye.co.uk | N/A |
| The Betoota Advocate | Australia | betootaadvocate.com | /feed/ |
| Waterford Whispers | Ireland | waterfordwhispersnews.com | /feed/ |
| Duffel Blog | Military | duffelblog.com | /feed/ |
| Hard Drive | Gaming | hard-drive.net | /feed/ |

---

## Phase 3: Satirical Techniques for Short Drama

### 3.1 Core Techniques

| Technique | Description | Example Source | Drama Application |
|-----------|-------------|----------------|-------------------|
| **Deadpan** | Serious delivery of absurd content | The Onion | Characters treat ridiculous situations as normal |
| **Juxtaposition** | Abrupt shift elevated→mundane | ClickHole | Scene cuts between dramatic and trivial |
| **Exaggeration** | Real trends to absurd extremes | Babylon Bee | Amplify traits to cartoonish levels |
| **Irony Reversal** | Opposite of expected reality | McSweeney's | Dramatic irony (audience knows more) |
| **Format Parody** | Mimic familiar formats | ClickHole | Mockumentary, fake news formats |
| **Insider Knowledge** | Community-specific humor | Hard Times | Subculture-specific with broader appeal |

### 3.2 Drama Adaptation Framework

```
Original Headline → Analysis → Adaptation

1. Extract Absurd Premise
2. Identify Satirical Target
3. Find Dramatic Twist
4. Map to Scene Structure:
   - Setup (0-10s): Hook with headline premise
   - Conflict (10-40s): Escalate absurdity
   - Punchline (40-60s): Payoff/subversion
```

---

## Phase 4: Data Extraction Methodology

### 4.1 Extraction Schema

```json
{
  "id": "unique identifier",
  "source": "website name",
  "source_url": "original URL",
  "title": "headline",
  "content": "full text",
  "content_summary": "3-5 sentence summary",
  "category": "politics/culture/entertainment/etc",
  "satire_type": ["deadpan", "absurdist", "ironic", "exaggeration"],
  "absurd_elements": ["element1", "element2"],
  "dramatic_potential": {
    "scene_setting": "where/when",
    "character_archetypes": ["type1", "type2"],
    "conflict_core": "central tension",
    "dialogue_snippets": ["quote1", "quote2"],
    "emotional_arc": "setup → escalation → punchline"
  },
  "published_date": "ISO 8601",
  "author": "byline",
  "extracted_date": "2026-03-26"
}
```

### 4.2 RSS Feed Sources (Complete List)

| Source | RSS URL | Update Freq | Drama Rating |
|--------|---------|-------------|--------------|
| The Onion | https://www.theonion.com/rss.xml | Hourly | ★★★★☆ |
| Babylon Bee | https://babylonbee.com/feed | Hourly | ★★★☆☆ |
| ClickHole | https://clickhole.com/rss.xml | Daily | ★★★★★ |
| Hard Times | https://thehardtimes.net/feed/ | Daily | ★★★★☆ |
| Reductress | https://reductress.com/feed/ | Daily | ★★★★☆ |
| McSweeney's | https://www.mcsweeneys.net/rss.xml | Daily | ★★★★★ |
| Beaverton | https://www.thebeaverton.com/feed/ | Daily | ★★★☆☆ |
| Daily Mash | https://thedailymash.co.uk/feed/ | Daily | ★★★☆☆ |

### 4.3 Extraction Rules

**Absurd Premise Extraction:**
- Pattern: `[Subject] + [Absurd Action] + [Object]`
- Keywords: declares, announces, elects, files, reveals
- Subjects: Local Man, Area Woman, Study, Dog, Cat

**Satire Angle Identification:**
- Political → Policy/person parody
- Social → Cultural phenomenon critique
- Personal → Individual behavior mockery
- Media → Format/venue satire

**Dramatic Twist Detection:**
- Literal interpretation of metaphor
- Exaggerated consequence
- Unexpected subject-object pairing
- Anti-climax subversion

---

## Phase 5: Technical Implementation

### 5.1 Recommended Architecture

```
RSS Feed Aggregator → Parser → Analyzer → Structured Output

Components:
1. Feed Reader (python-feedparser)
2. Content Fetcher (requests + beautifulsoup)
3. Absurdity Analyzer (NLP rules)
4. Drama Adapter (template mapping)
5. Data Store (JSON/MongoDB)
```

### 5.2 Rate Limiting & Ethics

- **Check Interval:** 30-60 minutes per feed
- **Max Requests:** 10/minute per domain
- **Respect robots.txt**
- **Cache Last-Modified/ETag**
- **User-Agent:** Identify as bot with contact info

### 5.3 Content Cleaning

- Remove HTML tags
- Normalize whitespace
- Extract main content (ignore ads/sidebars)
- Preserve paragraph structure
- Handle encoding issues (UTF-8)

---

## Phase 6: Reference Sources

1. [Top 30 Satirical News Websites 2026 - Feedspot](https://news.feedspot.com/satirical_news_websites/)
2. [ClickHole - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Website/ClickHole)
3. [The Hard Times - About](https://thehardtimes.net/about/)
4. [Reductress - About](https://reductress.com/about/)
5. [McSweeney's Internet Tendency](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/)
6. [The Beaverton](https://www.thebeaverton.com)
7. [Satire, honey and tears - De Gruyter](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/humor-2024-0053/html)

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*Hunter Agent | L3-Hunt Protocol | Task T-mn6utz4q*