Satire or Not?

That's my question about USA Today's Fact check: Satirical claim that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Ginsburg's death:

The claim: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The headline of an article published by satire website The Babylon Bee is a nod to the contentious history between the Trump administration and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The Babylon Bee is "the world's best satire site," according to its website.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died of metastatic pancreatic cancer Sept. 18, is actually "alive," the article suggests, because the 9th Circuit overturned her death….

Our rating: Satire

We rate this claim SATIRE, based on our research. A satirical article about the 9th Circuit "overturning" Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death has no basis in fact. It is true that the 9th Circuit has ruled against many Trump-era policies.

Other possible explanations for the USA Today piece: (1) Sabotage by secret enemy of USA Today. (2) Attempt to provide the Babylon Bee with free publicity, and with a straight man. (3) Actual outright product placement on the Babylon Bee's part; maybe they have a budget for that. (4) ???

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

(4) Presidential election year causing journalists to ramp up the unintentional self parody.

[Bubba Jones]

Journalism by lines should include the age of the author.

I suspect that most current journalists are under the age of 25 and lack self awareness.

[Dr. Ed 2]

https://babylonbee.com/news/fisher-price-introduces-supreme-court-protest-playhouse-that-can-be-vandalized-and-burned-down

[Al S]

"It is true that the 9th Circuit has ruled against many Trump-era policies."

I guess implying that the death of RBG is a "Trump-era polic[y]"?

But you have to respect that USAT did "the research" for this article!

[Formerly Cynical Asshole]

Other possible explanations for the USA Today piece: (1) Sabotage by secret enemy of USA Today. (2) Attempt to provide the Babylon Bee with free publicity, and with a straight man. (3) Actual outright product placement on the Babylon Bee's part; maybe they have a budget for that. (4) ???

(4) They actually believe their readers are too stupid to tell the story is satire (and they're probably right).

[Dr. Ed 2]

The classic case was _Falwell v. Flynt_....

[Dr. Ed 2]

"Death, at its core, is a construct designed to subvert the rule of law by taking pro-choice liberal judges away from us too soon."

[jdgalt1]

(5) Poe's Law applies.

[Michael P]

Gorilla marketing. Someone friendly to the Bee is aping USA Today.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

Gorilla marketing

Harambe memes?

[James Pollock]

(4) You do actually have to explain satire to people who are too dense to pick up on it directly.

[Leo Marvin]

... and USA Today knows its readership.

[James Pollock]

Collectively, they are people who like their information in small pieces, simplified as much as possible.

[DennisR]

Or it could be meta-satire about fact-checking columns, although that would require imputing more sophistication to USA Today's fact checkers than probably deserve.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

You said it better and shorter than me, but it's easier to believe USA Today having a sense of humor than woke scolds thinking the Babylon Bee article needed a fact check.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

but it’s easier to believe USA Today having a sense of humor than woke scolds thinking the Babylon Bee article needed a fact check

Is it?

[Hank Ferrous]

Exactly, has that exactly reversed. Humorless wokescolds are bread and butter of today's mass media.

[Doug Huffman]

Neologism of the month: WOKESCOLD. I approve.

[Eugene Volokh]

DennisR: Right, that was my "Satire" option from "Satire or Not?"

[DennisR]

I wondered if that was your intention. Full marks for your subtle headline. Do you think the fact-checking was in fact satire?

[Leo Marvin]

EV: Never. Explain. The joke.

[Hank Ferrous]

I enjoyed the subtlety, missed, my guess, of the Bee being referred to twice as a satire website before USA Today gives their rating of 'satire,' again, twice. I suspect the writer is not much fun at parties.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

I assumed it was someone at USA Today who decided to have a little fun. I don't think even the most woke scold could fail to recognize the Babylon Bee article as at least an attempt at humor, even if they thought it crude or too obvious to actually be funny.

I never would have guessed that anyone at USA Today has that kind of sense of humor, nor that their bureaucracy would ever publish it. But I would have thought it even less likely that anyone there would have taken the Babylon Bee article seriously. Again, I don't think even the worst woke scolds would believe that even the most fascist white supremacist would believe the Babylon Bee article.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"I don’t think even the most woke scold..."

Sadly, I could see the following legal argument being made.

1. A politically motivated county coroner "declines" to issue a death certificate for RBG
2. Senate Democrats object to nominating a replacement for RBG, because she hasn't been declared "legally dead".

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

That might have made for a more nuanced Babylon Bee article, but probably too long for their style. Not even the most rabid woke scold would try that.

[jdgalt1]

There have been rumors circulating for at least a year that she was already dead. Maybe they were true, I'm not in a position to know.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Oh, I could see the most rabid woke doing that...

[James Pollock]

There's this guru in India, who was kept in a freezer for a couple of years, because the leadership of his "church" maintains that he is not dead but merely in a VERY deep meditative state, therefore the heirs do not inherit (yet). It got covered at loweringthebar.net.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Bonus headline: "Republicans pounce"

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

To protect the integrity of the upcoming Presidential election, the Babylon Bee needs to be banned from the Internet. We cannot have a malicious Christian NGO spreading false election rumors and dividing our nation with inaccurate information!

[Artifex]

It seems the Bee is way ahead of you ...

Snopes recommends shutting down internet to prevent the spread of satire

[Krayt]

If the journalist had any creativity, they'd have reported on it seriously, mentioning the supreme power of court orders, King Canut ordering the tide to go out, and then finished with a lawyerly constitutional discussion of whether a circuit court could reverse a higher court's death.

[jdgalt1]

Is the definition of death a matter of federal or state law?

[Bored Lawyer]

I'll give you the stock lawyer's answer to every client that asks a question you don't know the answer to:

IT DEPENDS.

[Hank Ferrous]

Tax law, so, both.

[BadLib]

I actually was thinking that if RBG had thought ahead, maybe she could have (possibly after going to some country with more relaxed medical certification/licensing) had herself put on a heart-lung machine just before her last breath and have a doctor declare her to be "alive". The sham wouldn't have worked forever, but by the time the life/death issue wended it's way through our courts and all appeals been exhausted, it probably would have been after inauguration day.

And, would SCOTUS accept the case in some sort of "fast track" as it seems sort of self serving and/or possible conflict of interest to do so?

[BeSerious]

Honestly, the majority of the country is so dumb that I could see USA Today genuinely believing that some might get confused by the piece and think that some court or something ("What even is the 9th Circuit?") was disputing the very fact that she died.

Remember, Eugene - we live in the day of alternative facts.

[BeSerious]

"What even is 'overturned'"?

[Libertymike]

In a word, exhumation.

[cmcc_aus]

Well, you're right to ask. Here in VC over the past year or two we've had a fair amount of discussion about what happens when a law is "declared unconstitutional", and the consensus is that doesn't "remove the law from the books " it merely prevents it's enforcement. So the 9th circuit cannot change the fact that RBG is dead. It can only prohibit her from being described as "the late and formerly notorious RBG."

[jdgalt1]

I wouldn't put it past them to tell us she's pinin' for the fjords.

[rsteinmetz]

We could start a whole Deather Conspiracy claiming she's not actually dead since there is no certified original Death Certificate and the one on file is a forgery. RBG has not gone into seclusion waiting for the Second Coming of Kurt Cobane.

I'm sure we could suck in at least a few the woke Illuminatti.

But that would be in very poor taste.

[James Pollock]

"I’m sure we could suck in at least a few the woke Illuminatti."

not the ones who know who Kurt Cobain is, though.

[Libertymike]

Maybe the wokerati believe she has not died as the Notorious one would now have a chance to redeem herself by aligning her clerical hiring practices with her racist disparate impact jurisprudence.

[Jimmy the Dane]

The Ninth is where dead judges write opinions and is generally full of loopy out-of-touch hippie liberals. Wouldn't surprise me in the least this came out of that circuit.

[Sarcastr0]

Read the OP again. It's more subtle and meta than that.

[cmcc_aus]

Indeed. The USA Today piece has everything a proper fact check should have, and so much more. I would rate it as one-up on the Bee.

[Leo Marvin]

Sarcastro, Kind of ironic that that's lost on some of the commenters here.

[Sarcastr0]

This is one of those situations where it's so ambiguous, and what you see says more about you than the situation.

Me, I'm not quite that cynical about the media or it's audience. A bit dry for my taste, but I think satire.

[Leo Marvin]

It's a tough call, but I don't think so. If it were the Post or Washington Examiner, sure, but neither irony nor subtlety strike me as USA Today's brand.

[Adam Lenkowsky]

LOL. This is actually more accurate then you'd think. Remember after Judge Reinhardt died, an opinion was issued with him as the deciding vote. This promoted the Supreme Court to remind us that judges are appointed for life, not eternity.

[jdgalt1]

I fail to see why they overturned him even so, unless there is doubt that he penned the opinion while still living.

[Milhouse]

Because when the vote was held he was not a judge and was not entitled to vote. What he thought of the case before the vote is irrelevant, just like any other judge's pre-vote thoughts.

[James Pollock]

So, his vote wasn't contained in his opinion?

[SKofNJ]

It's number 4. USA Today is too stupid to realize how stupid it looks labeling as satire an article from a website that explicitly tells its readers that it is a satirical website .

[Flight-ER-Doc]

Conquest's third law: The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

https://www.isegoria.net/2008/07/robert-conquests-three-laws-of-politics/

[M L]

Gotta be satire.

[David Bremer]

The story says the work is supported by a grant from Facebook. I'm guessing they did this in part to give some cover for Facebook, which kept getting alerts from people calling this fake news and asking that the posts be removed. Now they can say that they don't need to because it's been rated satire.

[Ben of Houston]

That's probably the simplest explanation. Some people WERE falling for the joke (or were just angry) and repeatedly flagging it. In response someone called in a favor, saying "I know this sounds stupid, but can you make an article so I have something authoritative to give to these people".

[Jerry B.]

The Bee is one of the things keeping me relatively sane nowadays. I’ve had to give up reading our “local” paper, the Washington Post, because the bullshit level is just way higher than usual now.

[ReaderY]

Have you considered the possibility that the Babylon Bee’s claim to be the world’s best satirical website is itself satire?

[James Pollock]

How could that be?

[Larvell Blanks]

The thing about Babylon Bee is that the headlines constitute about 120% of the value of the overall piece. Reading the actual article subtracts from the effect. Which is perhaps itself a meta-satirical commentary on news today.

[Cal Cetín]

The same was true of the Onion when I was still reading it.

[Cal Cetín]

Daniel Defoe made his satire so plausible he went to the pillory:

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/daniel-defoe-put-pillory

[TwelveInchPianist]

(4) Clickbait.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Here's an IHE piece where someone apologizes for liking football. I can't tell if it's satire or not.

[Craig Johnston]

Since this generation seems to be taking hyperbole literally, I guess I can see why a paper might feel a need to explain that satire isn’t true.

[LSchnapf]

presumably a national injunction 🙂

[dwb68]

(4) this article is clickbait (USAToday makes money off ads).

[PopsHobby]

I really want to say the piece is satire, but the reporter's job is checking facts, not writing opinions.
https://www.usatoday.com/staff/4553285002/chelsey-cox/

[Charles Nichols - CRTC]

"The Babylon Bee is "the world's best satire site," according to its website."

That is obviously dicta. Dicta so meaningless it is beyond obiter, it is orbital dicta.

[PoxOnBothYourHouses]

The Babylon Bee has been having quite a kerfluffle with the Snopes site in recent months, due to Snopes from time to time checking on the Bee's articles before ultimately declaring them "satire." The "USA Today" piece looks like it could have been lifted straight from Snopes.

[ReaderY]

The courts may need another Congressional appropriation for weejee boards.

If judge can channel the spirit of the Constituion with no embodiment in its form to get their opinions, why not channel the spirit of Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Simply visit her grave and look for penumbras and emanations.

[Doug Huffman]

... and miasma. Whence CoViD-19.

The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense. Compliant pantie-faces.

[Sam]

Many of you are missing the primary focus of the USA Today "fact check." First, it is not tongue-in-cheek. It's a serious fact check. But the piece's primary target is not the BB's claim re the 9th and Ginsburg. The focus of the piece is on the claim of "satire." The details about the 9th are there to support the conclusion: "We rate this claim SATIRE".

Why did USA Today need to fact check (and then support) the claim that the BB piece is "satire?" Because, in the past, social media platforms that are sources of revenue for the BB have mistakenly interpreted BB articles as serious journalism, then concluded that the "serious" article was false, then suspended the BB's account, and demonetized them.

By fact checking and verifying the claim that the BB piece is satire, the USA today saved the BB from a similar experience -- and, in fact, did the BB a service.