FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Dr. Preston [email protected] (voice, fax)

ONLINE PUBLISHER TO LAUNCH COLLEGE NEWS SATIRE SITE01/29/04

College students are increasingly interested in news, and the news they choose is increasingly of a satirical kind, say two recently released reports.

News is never hard to find these days, and with satirical news available on TV (The Daily Show), in print (The Onion), and online (BrokenNewz.com), there are plenty of ways for students to satisfy their urge for satire.

So why not give web surfers the real news and news satire in one site?

Enter Dr. Preston Coleman, a writer and part-time professor, and RealStupidNews.com, the news satire site he created that combines daily satirical news stories with links to the web’s finest online news sources. The site has quickly established itself among news junkies, and after three months online, it already reaches tens of thousands of readers in over 80 countries.

And, it turns out, on hundreds of college campuses worldwide.

“Before we knew it, we were getting feedback from college students all over the place,” Coleman explains, “but we couldn’t really cater to them without losing some of our core audience.”

So the communications professor decided to leave well enough alone at RealStupidNews.com and start a brand new college-oriented publication, RightOnTimes.com, which he believes may be the first national news satire site written exclusively by and for college students.

RightOnTimes.com will launch on April 1 using a format similar to its predecessor-along with humorous news stories penned by students, the site features links to some of the nation’s best online newspapers and magazines as well as links to leading college newspapers and sports sites.

To coax notoriously busy (and poor) college students into writing news satire, cash prizes of up to $250 are being offered in a news satire writing contest, the winners to be published in the first edition of RightOnTimes.com.

Contest rules are available by clicking on “Contest” at either site, or aspiring journalists can go directly to www.realstupidnews.com/contest.html.

The winners will be announced at RightOnTimes.com and at collegehumor.com.

Dr. Preston Coleman is an author and award-winning scholar who holds advanced degrees in journalism (University of Georgia) and mass media (University of Iowa.) He has taught at the University of Georgia, the University of Iowa, and Kennesaw State University.