If the world can raise over $61,000 for potato salad via crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, then why can’t a satirical news program on Comedy Central launch a campaign to buy CNN for a cool $10 billion?
Well that, at least, was the punchline for a segment on The Daily Show last night, which saw host Jon Stewart launch a parody campaign to buy the cable news channel that’s routinely the subject of ridicule on the program. The show’s producers even went to the trouble of creating a standalone website, LetsBuyCNN.com, to help sell the joke — although, the site itself is just a photoshopped version of a Kickstarter campaign page.
"CNN, America's first 24-hour cable news network, has been terrible for many, many years," the site reads. "Does it have to be that way? Who knows, maybe it does. So let's find out for ourselves!"
Above: One of the prizes for The Daily Show’s fake Kickstarter campaign to buy CNN.
Rewards for donations for the fake campaign include getting your face in a CNN “talking head” box shared with 21 other faces ($10), your face in a CNN box shared with just six people ($10,000), a 24-hour two-week news circus event to find your lost keys ($5 million), and my personal favorite, a “Host a CNN anchor Hunger Games fight to the death” event ($1 billion).
[Side note: There's no way Wolf Blitzer would get to that bow and quiver when his competition is Anderson Cooper, Erin Burnett, and Chris Cuomo.]
The segment was prompted by News Corp. billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s massive $80 billion offer to buy out rival media company Time Warner last week, which was quickly rejected by Time Warner’s current management.
Check out the the segment below; it’s pretty funny and worth your valuable time.
