For the week of May 8 - 14, 2002

Satirical Internet site focuses on Hailey

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 "It’s really, really popular. I didn’t want to write, but it’s so much fun you can t get away from it."

—Bill Doty, Hailey resident who writes for Newz web site

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By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer

Broken Newz, the self proclaimed "Premiere Satire Network" on-line, announced on its site that Six Flags is building an amusement park, in Hailey, called "Poundamania" based on the life and career of poet Ezra Pound, who was born in Hailey.

To wit: " ‘We’re very excited at Six Flags to be entering into this exciting relationship with the good people of Hailey to honor a hometown boy and make one of the most important poets of the modernist period the focus of good clean family fun,’ said Six Flags chairman Harvey L. Maienknecht at a press conference held at the Hailey City Hall earlier today."

According to Broken Newz, artist renderings and 3D models of the proposed park were displayed. The article goes on to say, "At the ‘In a Station of the Metro’ ride we’re creating an exact replica of a Paris subway stop where Mom and Dad and all the kids will all be able to enjoy Pound’s turning away from the rhetorical excesses of romanticism while spilling their guts on a triple-looped roller coaster that pulls 6 g’s at 150 mph. And at the ‘Usury Canto’ Freefall you’ll get a lecture on the evils of the lending practices of early renaissance banks in Italy while undergoing a 350 foot drop in less than 4 seconds. We don’t think there’s anything like this park in the whole world."

The above was penned by Ohio writer William Grim and can be found on the Broken Newz web site.

This site is actually based in Hailey, where resident Bill Doty is one of the writers, the business editor, and the graphic designer. Doty designs and markets websites. His hosting service company, White Hawk Media, is based in Fresno, Calif.

A bit like The Onion, another satirical newspaper, Broken Newz premiered last year.

"It’s really, really popular. I didn’t want to write, but it’s so much fun you can t get away from it," Doty said. There are four other writers, who are all based elsewhere, and most of whom use a nom de plume.

"One writer is in the UK which gives it diversity, but it’s hard to get him to write anything that isn’t anti-Bush," Doty said. "What’s fun is people who think the ‘newz’ is real. People e-mail and say ‘check your facts.’"

 

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