UnNews:Slow News Day Declared

This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation.

1 November 2006

The most interesting thing to happen lately.

Across the English speaking world, reporters and news editors have been unable to find any significant or interesting information about events of the last 24 hours.

'I'm at my wit's end,' declared New York Philadelphian editor Chuck Floakum, 'Bush hasn't done anything stupid, nothing much has changed with regard to Iraq or the midterm elections, celebrities have been behaving themselves, no major sporting competitions have occurred... its a nightmare! We're had to shift the movie reviews to the front page, and the international section is full of recipes for hearty winter soups.'

America is not alone in facing a news drought. British reporter Buccephalus Twimley-Smythe declared it the slowest news day in fifty years. 'We're doing what we usually do in this situation,' he said, 'Basically that means running stories about how Tony Blair won't be Prime Minister for ever, but the public is starting to catch on. I think The Times is going into reruns; their leader today was about the Siege of Lucknow.' Meanwhile in Canada, many newspaper have nothing on their front pages but reproductions of TV test patterns.

Reporters and editors are not the only ones suffering under the news drought.

'Bloody chunder!' roared News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch. 'I mean stone the flamin' crows, I've seen some slow news days in me time, but this takes the bloody biscuit. I don't understand it. We were hoonin' along, and now we've run drier than a pommy's bath. I'm about ready to push a kid down a well, just to get things moving.'

For the Australian media, the slow news day comes at the worst time. 'We've been coasting for weeks off of Steve Irwin,' said Illawarrah Mercury subeditor, 'Just yesterday, we all agreed that we'd squeezed all the copy we can from his cold dead corpse, and we'd go back to printing actual news. Now this!'

The only English speaking country not to be affected by this terrible curse is New Zealand. 'If we waited for interesting events to occur before writing news articles, we'd be here forever,' scoffed Auckland Gazette editor Tum Smuth.