Yossarian Universal News Service

Yossarian Universal News Service (YU) is a satirical news service founded in 1980 by American humorists Paul Fericano and [http://homepage.mac.com/garyligi/iblog Elio Ligi] that is named after the main character in Catch 22.

At its founding, YU launched a series of fake news stories on the Republican agenda and offered its own press card for sale to anyone who applied for it. Its motto was "unbelievable news for unbelievable times." During the 1980s, YU's dispatches were subscribed to by a number of diverse publications and media outlets in the U.S. and abroad, including "The Nation", "The San Francisco Bay Guardian", "The Realist", "Mother Jones", "The Progressive", "Punch", "El País", "La Prensa", and "Krokodil", as well as National Public Radio and "Saturday Night Live",

In 1984, "The One Minute President," YU's satire on the policies of the Ronald Reagan administration, was published in Germany. An edition of the book in the U.S. followed two years later. In 1987, YU called the Iran-Contra affair "Nancygate," humorously blaming the First Lady for "not waking the President during both his terms."

In the 1990s under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, YU reported on the Republican Revolution, publishing a series of interviews with such personalities as Antonin Scalia, Newt Gingrich, Jerry Falwell, Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump, Pope John Paul II, Frank Sinatra, and William Casey.

Ater the 2000 presidential election, YU issued regular weekly dispatches chronicling George W. Bush's first year in office. Three days after 9/11, YU was the only news organization in the country to identify Bush's crusade against terrorism as his “re-election campaign war.” The weekly stories were sent to thousands of email subscribers all over the world and posted online at [http://www.zmag.org/interactive/content/index.cfm ZNet Interactive] . A collection of these stories, "I, Terrorist: Dispatches from the Front", was rejected by over 20 U.S. publishers at the height of Bush's popularity in 2002-2003.

YU still publishes its parody news, including a series of satiric broadcasts produced exclusively for radio, including "The One Minute News Hour, "YU Sports Update," "Quantum News Report," and "YU Almanac."

External links

* [http://www.yunews.com Yossarian Universal News Service official website]