At first glance of the nytimes-se.com, I couldn’t help but gasp. Was this for real? I was completely shocked.

Then, after flipping through the “pages” (or tabs), I caught onto what was going on. It was a joke. Of course I knew it wasn’t accurate as soon as I saw the date (July 4, 2009) and the top headline “Iraq War Ends,” but what I wasn’t understanding was why anyone would take time out of their day to write this, possibly copyright infringing, fake newspaper.

Not only was the content highly unrealistic, but it was also extremely biased. Firstly, I hope that print media is NEVER that left-winged. Secondly, I noticed a comment on one of the pages simply stating, “Copyright infringement” so I immediately started searching the pseudo-newspaper for any permission to use the original NY Times layout.

There was nothing at the bottom of the page, where I usually look for copyrights. The only thing I saw was “Copyleft.” To me, this Web site is clearly trying to make a statement… well point taken! But what I want to know is, legally, can they do that? And even people are saying this spoof paper will be a collector’s item? Puh-lease!  It’s not real!

Not only does the fake newspaper look faulty but it associates the nytimes-se.com version with the real version. It’s kind of like associative linking.

Basically, looking at the spoof newspaper not only put me in an irritated mood, but it made me feel sorry for the real NY Times. I wonder if they’re as irritated as me?

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