MORDEN, MB
“I don’t even know what’s happening until I see it in The Unger Review,” said Mrs. Brandt of Morden. “It’s basically the only news site these days without a paywall.”
Paywalls, coupled with Facebook’s ban on real news, means that Mrs. Brandt has no clue what is happening until Andrew Unger makes fun of it.
“I know it’s satire,” said Mrs. Brandt. “But when I read an article, I assume he’s spoofing something that’s happening in the real news and then I Google it to see what’s really up. If it wasn’t for Andrew Unger, I wouldn’t know about anything other than what was happening within the walls of my condo building.”
The fact the real news is so hard to access these days, means that references in satirical articles are sometimes missed by readers.
“I don’t even get the jokes anymore, but I just assume it’s some kind of exaggeration on the real deal,” said Brandt. “I gather there was some kind of situation with the US President … and the former one … and I think the Olympics are happening. I don’t know. Close enough.”
Brandt says she misses the real news, but says in recent years it was about as reliable as The Unger Review anyway.