Looking Back: Mouthing Off
The Oakland Post’s Satire section has been well-received by our readership this year, prompting a look back on what came before. Originally in 2007 created by Paul Gully, the Post’s Managing Editor at one point, and Kyle Magin, the Mouthing Off section was designed to give readers a laugh.
“It was a new type of position that wasn’t focused on reporting important work [or] of understanding what’s going on in the community, but more reacting [and] providing philosophical social commentary,” said Alex Cherup, a 2008 Oakland University graduate with a Bachelor’s in philosophy and communication. “The intent is humor [and] satire, hopefully the readership felt we met that standard.”
Cherup was doing stand-up comedy at the time and had begun working with The Post as an opinion contributor after taking professor Holly Gilbert’s Introduction to Journalism class. He became the first editor of the Mouthing Off section not long after its creation.
“I had the most unofficial name of anybody that worked at the newspaper,” Cherup joked.
The weekly column usually ran two stories on the back pages of each issue that covered any level of absurd and entertaining topics.
“I think the inspiration behind it was that we wanted to expand the range of the paper to include the opinion perspective,” Cherup said. “I think a lot of newspapers have a strong editorial page and additionally there are often humorists that contribute to newspapers, and we had people that were willing and wanting to contribute creatively and humorously to what was going on at a local, national and statewide level.”
Political opinions were welcome as George W. Bush was president at the time, but the section’s main goal was comedy.
“We used to do this thing called ‘caught reading the Post’ where the day the issue was released, we would walk around campus looking for people reading the Oakland Post, give them a gift card and then just talk about what they were reading [and] what there favorite section was,” Gully said. “Surprisingly, a good percentage of the people that we talked to seemed to like Mouthing Off.”
With topics that ranged from the defense of nudism or a dispute about a Hooters restaurant opening in Troy to things you don’t want to hear from the next bathroom stall, the Mouthing Off columnists never seemed to have an issue coming up with new and unique content.
“It’s a satirical, humorous, editorial section that would provide perspective from students and writers on campus aimed to point out a particular issue and make it humorous, try to get people to laugh and take a creative angle on it,” Cherup said.
The Mouthing Off section had a valiant run until 2015 when it faded out of the Post’s content.
“I can only imagine how it would be today doing that, just because there’s so much intensity, ridiculousness and at times frightening situations that are happening on a day to day basis,” Cherup said. “We’d be devoting so much time to each one of the incidents that come forward.
Many of the Mouthing Off stories can still be found on the Oakland Post’s website.