After reading through a bunch of blogs that have been written by my peers, I have come to realize that the majority of them believe these satirical types of news reportage are less reliable then the traditional news. Nobody explicitly says that they are completely unreliable but it is pretty much widely agreed, from what I have read, that the satirical types of reportage are less reliable.
In her blog, Kelsey Spanik had stated that "Most of the time these parodies tend to not be completely true" (http://kelseyspanik.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/). What Kelsey was referring to in her statement, was the satirical news reporting shows. Kelsey understands that what the people on these shows do is parody the actual news, which is pretty much making fun of it by mocking it. This is a method of culture jamming that is used quite frequently in our current public sphere.
Another person who had said that these satirical types of news were somewhat unreliable, was David O'Connor. In his blog he says that "Using Rick Mercer's 'rants' as an example, the audience knows that the show is satirical, but they also know that Mercer is simply going to give his opinion" (http://oconnormedia.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/1f25-blog-entry-4-is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/). When David brings this up in his blog, I believe he is trying to use it to help the reader acknowledge or remember that these satirical news shows are not always entirely true. He also displays his thoughts of how it is mainly opinionated and I agree with him in this aspect as well as many others.
The third blog in which I noticed this recurring theme was a blog written by Raven Henry. Something that struck me from her blog was when she said that satirical news reporting "presents the news in a 'fake' light to bring the people of this generation news they want to listen to" (http://askrae.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/). By saying this, she is showing, explicitly, that she believes satirical news reporting is unreliable. I understand what she was saying, and I do agree with the statement that she made. I do not know if I would go as far as to call shows like The Rick Mercer Report fake, but I do think that by being a more unrealistic and comedic that these shows keep the watchers interested and tuned in.
After seeing that most of the people who watch or know about these satirical news shows believe that they are unrealistic, the same way I do, I can come to see that these satirical news reportages will not effect the longevity of the current public sphere. If readers can understand that these shows are spoofs and parodies then they can be expected to know that they shouldn't directly believe what the shows are saying. Since these shows do not reduce the truth of the actual news and are mainly opinionated, I don't believe that they would directly impact the contemporary public sphere in any type of drastic way.
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