The Poke is a British

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

. It was launched in 2002 as a fanzine distributed at the

Edinburgh Festival __NOTOC__ This is a list of Arts festival, arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland. The city has become known for its festivals since the establishment in 1947 of the Edinburgh International Festival and the ...

and independent music shops. The website has produced

viral video Viral videos are video, videos that become popular through viral phenomenon, a viral process of Internet sharing, primarily through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhon ...

s, which are often

Auto-Tune Auto-Tune is audio processor software released on September 19, 1997, by the American company Antares Audio Technologies. It uses a proprietary device to measure and Pitch correction, correct pitch in music. It operates on different principles ...

edits of British current affairs.

History

''The Poke'' began as a fanzine with a circulation of 50,000 that was sold in music shops across the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and at the annual Edinburgh Festival. Later becoming an internet-only publication, the website gained some popularity when it was featured as an "Internet pick of the week" by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', which described it as "a British version of ''

The Onion ''The Onion'' is an American digital media company and newspaper organization that publishes satirical articles on international, national, and local news. The company is currently based in Chicago, but originated as a weekly print publication ...

'' crossed with ''

Private Eye ''Private Eye'' is a British fortnightly satirical and current affairs (news format), current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely recognised ...

''". The site was named 'Website of the day' by ''pocket-lint.com'' on 19 January 2012. The red-top look of the site means there have been cases of the site's fictional,

news stories being misinterpreted as real news items. In January 2012, a number of French news organisations including ''

Le Parisien ''Le Parisien'' (; ) is a French daily newspaper covering both international and national news, and local news of Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of ...

'' and '' L’Express'' reported on an August 2011 article by ''The Poke'' about a BBC sign language interpreter being fired from her job for 'fabricating news' as a genuine story. French radio broadcasters RTL and France Info also reported the story as real, and television broadcaster Canal+ featuring the fictitious 'scandal' on an evening news programme. In December 2022, ''The Poke'' was acquired by Digitalbox plc.

The Leveson Enquiry musical

''The Poke'' created an

d version of the Leveson Inquiry featuring the sampled testimonies of

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian - American retired business magnate, investor, and media mogul. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of List of assets owned by News Corp, local, national, a ...

, Rebekah Brooks and

Andy Coulson Andrew Edward Coulson (born 21 January 1968) is an English journalist and political strategist. Coulson was the editor of the ''News of the World'' from 2003 to 2007, following the conviction of one of the newspaper's reporters in relation to ...

. The video was featured in ''the Guardian''s Viral Video Chart.

Nick Clegg apology song

d remix uploaded in September 2012 to

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

of Nick Clegg's apology over going back on his promise to oppose a rise in

tuition fees Tuition payments, usually known as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English, are fees charged by education institutions for instruction or other services. Besides public spen ...

saw the website rise to national publicity, with the video becoming an Internet phenomenon. Following a request by the website, Clegg allowed the song to be released as a single, with proceeds donated to the Sheffield Children's Hospital. The track was released on 21 September, and entered the weekly UK singles chart at number 136 two days later.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Poke, The British satirical websites Internet properties established in 2002 2002 establishments in the United Kingdom

History

The Leveson Enquiry musical

Nick Clegg apology song

See also

References

External links