For as long as there has been news, people have upheld the proud tradition of parodying it. Even the Acta Diurna, an ancient official post of the Roman Empire dating to the second century, has surviving parodies written by several of the period’s great writers.
Somewhere tucked between dusty bookshelves in an old crevice, hidden in the twisted ancient trees of Oakland University, a great modern mind has carried forward this storied tradition.
The Grizzly Tales (not to be confused with the children’s story of an eerily similar name) is Oakland’s own The Onion. Layered, complex, sometimes juvenile … but always good for a chuckle.
Between the lines of stories, the jokes do not end with The Grizzly Tales.
The stories are authored by local convicts and others of ill repute. They even hire dog-kickers.
It reports on the facts that the cowards and ideologues at The Oakland Post — too comfortable in their leather-cushioned office — are far too afraid to cover.
In only their few months of activity, the Tales have demonstrated that they are bound to none of those chains of domesticity.
Their stories offer revelations on less-reported happenings on campus.
One of their most compelling pieces is an exclusive statement from Oakland University on the campus’s data center. No other outlet has managed that level of scoop.
They also covered an initiative by WXOU to start playing good music by 2032. Progress on that initiative is unclear. Tuning in at the right time can pull in music from actual PS2 games. Nerds.
Stunning and truly brave coverage.
The Tales do not limit themselves to happenings at Oakland’s kinda small campus, however.
They also cover the edgiest and most relevant happenings in politics, such as Jeffrey Epstein’s role in the Epstein criminal saga. The situation undoubtedly becomes clearer as new documents are published.
In contrast, the tin foil-haters at The Oakland Post have veered towards wild conspiracy theories, suggesting that the scariest part of the newly released documents is that people other than Epstein might be involved.
The school’s second newspaper also has a sports section.
William Dunlap took time out of his life sentence for a 2009 Flint homicide to utilize his insider access directly from the Michigan Department of Corrections to give the real thorn in OU’s basketball side this past season.
Not in the form of injuries or mismanagement. But chronic, explosive toilet tantrums.
These are secrets the world needs to know.
Satire and parody are often conflated with fake news. This is an unfair comparison. Fake news and disinformation are intellectual cancers, and often agents of psychological warfare.
Satire and parody, meanwhile, are acts of love.
Your drunk uncle does not talk about everything wrong with America on Thanksgiving because he hates this country like a tetanus shot, but because he loves it more than anything.
One suspects that just so is The Grizzly Tales’ relationship with the Post.
As for The Oakland Post?
The drunk uncle has always been our favorite family member.
