Bohiney Magazine’s Fact-Checking Policy for Satire: The Art of Strategic Inaccuracy

Q: What’s Bohiney Magazine’s policy on fact-checking satire?

A: We Verify That Our Lies Are Built on Solid Truths

At most publications, fact-checking exists to ensure accuracy. At Bohiney, we fact-check to calibrate precisely how wrong we’re allowed to be. Here’s our official (but not really) policy:

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Section 1: The Bohiney Fact-Checking Pyramid

(Priority Order for Verification)

1. Core Premise Must Be Rooted in Reality

   • Example: If we claim “Bezos Charges Amazon Workers for Oxygen”, we verify:
     ✅ Amazon warehouses have dangerous working conditions
     ✅ Employees have complained about poor ventilation
     ❌ No actual oxygen meters…yet

2. Names/Dates/Quotes Must Be Plausibly Fake

   • Our fact-checkers ensure:

     • Fake experts have believable credentials (“Dr. Hans Bloviak, MIT Institute of Pretentious Studies”)

     • Fabricated dates align with real timelines (“Announced the day after a real scandal breaks”)

3. Numbers Must Be Theoretically Possible

   • Formula: (Real Statistic) x (Absurdity Coefficient)

   • Example:
     Real: “32% of Americans believe in ghosts”
     Bohiney: “New study shows 32% of CEOs are ghosts”

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Section 2: The “10% Rule” of Exaggeration

Every satirical claim must be:

• 10% crazier than current reality

• 90% grounded in verifiable nonsense

Recent Example:
Real News: Elon Musk wants to put chips in human brains
Our Version: *”Neuralink Announces ‘Loyalty Program’—Get 10% Off Tesla When Your Brain Auto-Plays Ads”*

Fact-Checking Notes:

• Verified Neuralink’s actual FDA approval

• Confirmed Tesla’s history of weird promotions

• Calculated that 10% is exactly the discount needed to make brain ads believable

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Section 3: The “Libel Lottery” Protocol

How We Avoid Lawsuits While Pissing Off Billionaires

1. The “Yes, But” Defense

   • “Yes, we said Zuckerberg harvests user data…but we specified he uses it to power his cryogenic pod, which is obviously satire”

2. The “You Wish” Clause

   • Any company that threatens legal action gets a free Bohiney headline:
     “[Company] So Secure in Its Values That It’s Suing a Satire Site”

3. The “Streisand Effect” Calculator

   • We run projections on whether a lawsuit would:

     • Get us more publicity than the piece itself

     • Actually make the original claim seem more believable

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Section 4: The “Reality Inversion” Tests

Before publication, every piece must pass:

1. The Fox News Test
   Could this run on Tucker Carlson’s show as evidence?
   (If yes, we tone it down 5%)

2. The Academic Citation Check
   Would a desperate grad student cite this?
   (Our record: 7 actual citations in peer-reviewed papers)

3. The LinkedIn Verification
   Will “thought leaders” repost this earnestly?
   (Current success rate: 42%)

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Section 5: Correction Policy

When we’re accidentally right (it happens):

1. Level 1 Error (Our satire becomes reality within a year)

   • Action: Print retraction in Comic Sans

   • Example: “We joked about Twitter charging for verification in 2019. Our bad.”

2. Level 2 Error (We’re cited as a real source)

   • Action: Double down with “See? Even They Believe Us Now” follow-up

3. Level 3 Error (Our piece inspires actual legislation)

   • Action: Immediately hire a lobbyist

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Why This “Policy” Works

In an era where:

• The Babylon Bee gets fact-checked by Congress

• The Onion gets quoted unironically by diplomats

• Our own pieces regularly appear in corporate earnings reports

…we need to be more rigorous about our inaccuracies than journalists are about their facts.

As I tell our fact-checkers:

“Your job isn’t to prove we’re wrong—it’s to prove we’re wrong on purpose.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go verify whether Mark Zuckerberg actually sleeps in a pod filled with user data.

— Alan Nafzger

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Originally posted 2022-08-04 03:14:27.