Charleston’s Next Pulitzer?

West Ashley, as well as the rest of the tri-county region now has a new go-to news source competing with venerable media outlets like the Post and Courier, Coffee News, and West Of.
Launched in January, Fauxcountry News is so far still just a website (fauxcountrynews.com), but it has welcomed more than 330,000 visitors in those three short months.
Charleston City Paper just named the website as “Best Source for … Local News” in its annual “Best Of” edition.
And for good reason, considering the stories FCN has broken. On its first day in existence, it released this story, “Search for West Ashley Woman’s Debit Card Enters Day Three.”
Did that story get any play in the PnC? Nope. It’s almost like the paper was trying to bury the truth.
In February came the shocking expose of a West Ashley man who “asserted himself as a total badass” by “vaping fruity pebbles steam” for three hours at a bar.
“He’s so mysterious,” said one local woman, commenting on the man surrounded by a self-made “fortress of steam.”
And then there was the brilliant “West Ashley Man Dominating Jeopardy Teen Week from his Living Room.”
Fauxcountry News is, obviously, a satire site that has succeeded like no other similar efforts in years past. According to its creator, Norm DeGuerre, it was heavily influenced by his personal desire to work at the national satirical newspaper, The Onion.
The stories are short, and funny, with occasional crudity, and are always accompanied by a hysterically bland stock photo which ads to the deadpan quality, heightening the faux-seriousness of the story.
DeGuerre is not the creator’s real name, which he keeps shrouded in the same fog of mystery as the vaper mentioned above, as he is a successful local professional in a very, very unfunny field. And he takes potshots at far more than just West Ashley.
“What makes me most proud as a satirical writer, something I count as a real success, is when I make a bunch of people laugh and piss a bunch of people off,” says DeGuerre.
He really hit the mark back in late January with a piece entitled, “Porter-Gaud Students Take Field Trip to Discover What the Middle Class Is.”
One student in the story is quoted as saying, ““Why are they cooking their own food? Where’s their Paleo chef? This is so tragic.”
Many were outraged, judging by some of the comments on Facebook: “nate” wrote: “This story is DEFINITELY NOT fake. I know Tinsley and she sucks at life. She’d probably keel over if it weren’t for the maid, porter, butler, tutor, masseuse, yoga instructor, nutritionist, and valet to keep her functioning.”
Five minutes later, one working mother with four kids at the school posted: “I work hard to pay my sons’ tuition, in fact, started my own company to do so and pray every day that my sons will always have the safe arms of the Porter Gaud villagers wrapped around them.”
The next comment came 20 minutes later: “The next article should be about how Charlestonians don’t understand satire.”
DeGuerre’s favorite comment came from one Porter-Gaud supporter claiming many students are middle class at the school. “That’s the equivalent of saying, ‘I have a black friend,’” he says.
DeGuerre said that when he launched the website, he thought that if he got 1,000 hits in the first month, it would be a success. By 5 p.m. of the first day, it had more than 1,300 visits.
By the end of the day, the number was 13,000 visits. And a story about how Mt. Pleasant was struggling to accommodate refugees from Ohio netted 52,000 hits.
“It’s leveled out, certainly, since then, with some peaks and valleys,” said DeGuerre. This previous weekend, a story about Summerville erecting a wall to keep out Goose Creekers got more than 1,000 hits.
DeGuerre’s process has quickened. Like The Onion, he brainstorms the headlines first, follows up with a writing session that has shrunk from two hours to 15 minutes, and then formats it for the Internet.
What was meant to just provide him with a respite from his corporate day is beginning to earn a little money, he said. “The goal, obviously, is to do this full-time and quit my day job.”
We should all be so lucky.