cherryexile
Vital 1st Team Regular
They will be flattered. It is the highest honour a spoof site can get.
SNN has duped more than one organisation over the last few years,
"One of the biggest honours for Southend News Network came when the Acting Bureau Chief of the Associated Press London Office got in touch by email to ask for more details about a ‘story’ where a mother was arrested for accidentally calling her baby ‘Heroin’ instead of ‘Hermione’ (*4) – they have the emails to prove that this actually happened and may even use them one day!
In February 2016, the unthinkable happened! Two senior media officers at Southend Borough Council (the main target of most Southend News Network ‘stories’) invited the Chief Reporter to a meeting at Civic Centre, and they conceded that the success and following of Southend News Network on social media meant that they could no longer ‘afford’ to not engage with their own residents through this ‘news service.’ At the time of writing, SNN’s weekly reach for Facebook posts alone is between 150,000 and 250,000 users.
It is probably unprecedented for a local council to take this unusual step to get in touch with the people that they represent and are responsible for, but they have taken it all in incredibly good humour. They have now started engaging on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #troofbehindthespoof.
It will be fascinating to see if other government bodies in the UK decide to engage with spoof/satire news services in the same way. During the meeting, they even admitted that their call centre has to deal with a significant amount of enquiries from irate local residents when a more controversial ‘story’ goes live, such as the Halloween EXCLUSIVE when SNN revealed that all Southend Trick or Treaters would need to apply for a licence and undergo training and evaluation before hitting the streets (*5)."
https://southendnewsnetwork.net/about-snn/