Getting Ready For A Spoof

The NY Times does not like being spoofed - Glenn has links, and we have more.

The key is the "How to" page. You cannot know less about HTML than I do and still log on to the Internet, but I followed these instructions, copied the Times code into a blank "Blogger" template, and had a faux Times page congratulating my daughter's dramatic accomplishments in about ten minutes. There was the "Blogger" ad banner at the top, but let your wallet be your guide on that point.

And we should note that the Times will frown on this activity:

Be advised that The Times' letter I received specifically mentioned their concern that I had posted instructions on "HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN NEW YORK TIMES WEB SITE. The Times claims that I am "compounding the offense by encouraging others to follow [my] lead". It is not clear to me whether they are claiming that this too is illegal so you will have to read it and decide for yourself. To be safe you had better not follow my instructions on how to create a mirror page."

Well, to be safe you had better not follow my instructions either - I left the "Blogger" banner at the top, and then took the whole page down after showing it off briefly, and you may welll ask, what was the point?

Our time is coming.

UPDATE: See, this is not right, and people might be fooled.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This is classic. The Times will manage to lose, and look bad doing it. This wouldn't be happening if Howell Raines were in charge!

My faux Times Columnist Correction page is making the rounds. A few people have echoed sentiments expressed over at The Lopsided Poopdeck:

I know it's not really a page from the Times. My question is....can I make up pages like this and say anything I want and get away with it? I can think of some good articles I would like to write for the Times.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN NEW YORK TIMES WEB SITE (or any site for that matter)

0. Anyone who knows basic HTML knows how easy this is but for those who don't here you go....

1. Open the page you want to replicate in your browers (I am using IE 6.0 so adjust accordingly)
2. Select View, Source so that a text file of the HTML code for the page appears (in my case, in Notepad)
3. Poke around to find text that you can change or modify (I tend to either scroll around or use the FIND feature to find a specific phrase I want to change or replace)
4. After you have made your changes you want save the text file with a .HTM ending
5. To view your work open the new .HTM file in your brower [NOTE: to test your work in progress make changes and hit REFRESH to view those changes in your browser]
6. Upload the finished file to the web

Comments

[Bill Peschel]

At the risk of getting a frowning letter from the New York Times, an easier way would be to use a free program to take a snapshot of the page. Then, you can import it into any art program like PhotoShop and make your modifications that way. This is especially easy if all you want to do is overlay your own photo over one of theirs.

[ErikZ]

That's a horrible idea. If it ever becomes popular, you'll blow though your bandwidth limit almost instantly. After that you'd end up owing quite a bit of money to your ISP.

His first suggestion is fine.

[Dustin]

Dont forget that good satire is clearly satrie. make sure that your modifications make it celar that you are making satrie.

i suppose having a responsible corrections page is clearly not the NYT, but rememebr how the original satire had a nice paragraph at the end, just to be sure

good luck

[anon]

Even easier; on most modern browsers, visit a page, go to your File menu and hit "Save page as..." (or whatever looks similar to that), and save the "Complete Web Page" (or whatever looks similar to that option). You'll get the HTML and all pictures, stylesheets, Javascript, etc. necessary to view that web page, all nicely relatively linked and ready to be tweaked and uploaded at will.

I have a handful of pages I've personally archived this way in case they ever leave the net. So far, none have, but if they do I'm ready. This is also a great way to tweak a weblog template or something with the "live data"; you can grab the entire page and make all your changes completely off-line, but seeing how it affects your real site. I do pretty much all my template changes on my personal site this way now.

[Cecil Turner]

Back on the "parody as protected speech" issue, I think the problem with this particular example is that it's not funny. It's clearly parody, but in order to generate laughs, there must be some possibility of mistaking it for reality (if only for a moment), so you get the "aha!" realization when you twig to the fact it's a joke.

There may be a universe in which the NYTimes corrects columnists' errors, and the name of one of their columnists isn't a colloquialism for misleadingly twisted quotations. But this isn't it--and nobody with access to the internet is going to be fooled for a second. So unless one can come up with something a little more plausible (e.g., the Onion's "Study: 58 Percent Of U.S. Exercise Televised"), perhaps satire ought to be left to professionals.

[Howie]

I'm with Dustin and Cecil Turner. The extent of Cox's creativity seems to be his ability to use the right button on his browser. His amateurish efforts would probably have gone largely ignored, had the Times not chosen to try to make an example of him. So, with the exception of the legal context, he has graduated from obscurity to a subject of derision.

[Insufficiently Sensitive]

Derision is better directed at the blokes who choose to snipe at Cox, rather than acknowledging well-deserved criticisms of the Times' gaping hole where a corrections policy should be.

[Stumax]

I don't think parody actually has to make you laugh, does it? I think all parody has to do is intend to mock, deride, or ridicule its target.

Of course, it's a lot better when it's funny.

[Dan]

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