A satirical news website set up last year by two former newspaper journalists is receiving more than 250,000 visitors a month after only 18 months in operation.

The Daily Mash, www.thedailymash.co.uk, achieved 276,275 unique visitors in the month of October thanks to spoof stories such as ‘Ross and Brand are heroes say Spanish’, ‘Alcohol to be restricted to nice people with degrees’ and ‘Banks to lend you your own money’.

In the three months to the end of September the Berwickshire-based news organisation, which boasts a full-time staff of two, averaged 197,685 unique visitors a month – on a par with some established daily newspaper sites.

Publisher Paul Stokes said: “These impressive figures prove that if you are smart and funny there is a huge audience out there.”

The duo behind the Daily Mash describe themselves as “two of Britain’s least respected journalists.”

Paul is a former business editor of The Scotsman who boasts of having been sacked as a newspaper columnist by, among others, the Daily Record and Scotland on Sunday. His colleague Neil Rafferty reported on politics for the Press Association and Sunday Times Scotland before deciding on a career change.

The site is run like a conventional news operation and updated daily with at least three new stories inspired by that day’s Scottish or UK news agenda.

It is now entering the world of reverse publishing, with its first book ‘Halfwit Nation: Frontline Reporting From the War on Stupid’ now available from Constable & Robinson, priced £9.99.

Comments

yorkshire miner (01/12/2008 16:30:34)
Has it ever occurred to any of you that the reason that the “Daily Mash” is getting all the hits is that people are getting fed up with all the P.C. Garbage that masquerades as the news, and is purported to be true. The best example to Date was the Prime Minister saying he knew nothing of the arrest of a Tory M.P. If you believe that you must be blind deaf and dumb. Arresting an M.P. has political repercussion, if the Prime Minister didn’t know this he should have and if he didn’t he should not be that position. Go and check the article the daily mash did concerning this
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/the-purge-begins-200811281425/
everybody knows that the satirical take by the Daily mash was untrue but the way things are going it could be true. By lampooning the antic of the political goons you are safe from any accusations of Islamophobia or racism. I will certainly visit the web site more and more, it is the only place that there is any honest criticism, of the lunacy of our times.