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For Immediate Release: February 21, 2002
Satirists
Strike Vancouver Sun
20,000 Copies of Parody Edition Reveals Corporate Media and
BC Liberals Are Really Packing the Fudge
VANCOUVER - Guerrilla Media (GM) unleashed its satirical support of the BC Liberals' New Era today when nearly 100 urban guerrillas distributed 20,000 copies of a parody edition of the Vancouver Sun to Lower Mainland morning commuters.
"CanWest Global big cheese Izzy Asper, like Hollinger Inc. honcho Conrad Black before him, uses his corporate media outlets to promote his narrow worldview – get with the BC Liberal program or get lost," said GM linotype operator Noam de Plume. "Guerrilla Media has produced this parody edition of the Vancouver Sun for any remaining Gordon Campbell voters who may still be bullshit impaired."
The four-page knock-off of BC's newspaper of record faithfully spoofs the sycophantic scribblings of the Sun and its relentless Liberal boosterism. In particular, the GM parody features a full-page takedown of the insufferable CanWest Global Believe BC campaign – Believe BS, Our Magnificent Millionaires.
"In these mean-spirited times, it's getting harder and harder to make fun of BC's media, corporate and political elites," said de Plume. "I mean, how can you satirize the privileged few who constantly whine about the state of the provincial economy during the last ten years of NDP rule when studies show BC has the most millionaires per capita? Moreover, these very ultra-rich British Columbians own 35.5 per cent of the province's wealth."
The Sun parody also features a full-page fightback poster depicting a cartoon Slash Gordon stomping Vancouver's skyline. Another page is devoted to articles about the beneficiaries of Campbell's tax cut, the devastation of one rural BC community and the Sun's coverage of the last two provincial post-election budgets – NDP versus Liberal.
"The media study of Sun coverage of the NDP's 1996 $594-million deficit budget found that nearly two out of every three stories from May to September were negative," said de Plume. "For the BC Liberals, the Sun's 2001 budget coverage for a similar period had no negative articles on the $3.4 billion-and-counting Campbell deficit. It's a clearcut case of fudging the news."
The parody portions of the Sun spoof are posted at a new GM CanWest Global satire website - . For further information about the budget media analysis, including a complete summary of articles used in the study, please e-mail .
Guerrilla Media is a
Vancouver-based group of media critics who are tired of
meeting people who say they're sorry they voted BC Liberal.
Feeling pretty dumb, huh?
l
For Immediate Release: February 28, 2002
Global
Media Elephant Roars, Guerrilla Mouse Soars
Sun
publisher's statement pumps up profile of satirical spoof,
CanWest lawyers get guerrilla website
pulled
VANCOUVER - Guerrilla Media (GM) would like to thank our biggest booster, Vancouver Sun publisher Dennis Skulsky, for bringing news of our latest parody newspaper wrap to the people of Vancouver. Statements by Skulksy and other CanWest Global flunkies, along with legal threats to the company hosting , have boosted the parody profile considerably.
In a "Statement from the Publisher" on page A2 of Saturday's (February 23, 2002) edition, Skulsky decried "Thursday's knock-off of The Vancouver Sun by a shadowy organization that styles itself 'Guerrilla Media.'" His opinion that "trademarks were parodied in poor taste while story lines and boxed items were offensive" sparked overwhelming interest in the GM spoof.
"After Dennis championed the prank paper in his statement and a segment on BC's highest rated news show – Global's BCTV News Hour – we received numerous requests for copies," said GM Reader Sales and Services spokesperson Sue Donym. "Moreover, donation offers came pouring in from people who had been previously unaware of its existence."
"Additionally, CanWest's lawyers shutting down our spoof news website, accelerated online buzz for the project and has brought traffic spikes at our main website and our mirror-site," said Donym.
"Skulsky's use of both the Sun and BCTV to air his personal views illustrated our point that CanWest Global virtually owns the news in Vancouver – and BC – controlling all the large daily newspapers, the top television newscast, a major Internet portal plus a huge stable of community weeklies," said GM News Detector Beau Gus Monikker.
"Prior to Skulsky's reaction, we feared the satire had missed its mark entirely," said GM Chief Counsel and Bottlewasher R. Zatz Handel. "When Friday's Sun dismissed the effort as a 'four-page flyer,' GM's Internal Amusement Affairs (IAA) department immediately launched an investigation into a possible massive intelligence failure of the bogus broadsheet's humour."
"Skulsky's timely and extraordinary endorsement that 'humour became malicious, good fun became slanderous and, in this case, distributors of the counterfeit version… defrauded our customers,' has restored its comedic credibility," said Handel. "GM's IAA has now expressed complete confidence in the lampoon and they praised its joke-to-throw-weight ratio."
"I want to thank Skulsky for personally inspiring, even inviting, the project in a November 21, 2001 Sun article entitled 'News bosses 'sell stories, not boosterism' where he said 'that's the day we can be and should be held accountable,'" said GM's Senior Satire Architect Noam de Plume. "At GM, we assumed he was referring to the day – a few weeks later – when he unveiled the BC-Liberal-boosterism-to-the-max Believe BC feature, profiling a wide range of BC's Millionaires."
The Vancouver Scum online satire edition can be viewed at . Skulsky's full statement can be viewed by clicking here.
Guerrilla Media is a Vancouver-based group of media critics who prefer to hide behind anonymous names than a multi-billion dollar corporation and a phalanx of lawyers.
For Immediate Release: June 26, 2002
Guerrilla Media spices-up CanWest diversity with Sun satire website
VANCOUVER - Guerrilla Media (GM) today dedicated its internet parody portal at to helping Vancouver Sun/Province publisher Dennis Skulsky provide a wider diversity of views to the people of BC.
"After CanWest CEO Leonard Asper fired Ottawa Citizen Publisher Russell Mills for making that paper 'too homogeneous,' we were concerned Skulsky might be the next victim of his diversity drive," fretted GM spokesperson Sue Donym.
"CanWest Global controls more than 90 per cent of BC's daily newspaper market, but their local fishwrappers display breath-taking homogeneity in their unabashed boosterism of Gordon Campbell and his radical Robin-Hood-in-reverse policies," Donym said.
"If Skulsky were fired for failling to promote diversity in his domain, we would lose a major inspiration for our satire," sighed Donym tearfully. "We're offering our 'poor taste... malicious' website to spice-up the diversity of Global's BC empire."
Current top stories on the website cover CanWest's new hi-tech editorial "moodware," Premier Campbell's declaration that "human rights are for losers," and a Fraser Institute study proving Canada's CEOs are underpaid.
Avid readers who missed the print edition of GM's June 13, 2002 satirical wrap of the Vancouver Sun can now catch-up online - including Steven Harper's plans to outsource Canada's military, the Business BS ad parody, plus bonus content not in the print edition.
"Our canada.con site is a comic convergence of Global media parody, BC political satire and local Liberal lampoon," explained Donym. "It dynamically downsizes the priapic pro-corporate agenda of the Vancouver Sun and Gordon Campbell's Liberals."
The site has previously been shut down twice by threats from CanWest's lawyers, although GM is still awaiting Dennis's "steps to seek out the perpetrators."
Visit the GlobalBS site at - the site is updated weekly and contains dozens of satirical news stories for your perusing pleasure.
Guerrilla Media is a group of Vancouver-based Scum who occasionally cross the line and rise to the top.