Der Postillon is a Germanwebsite, run by Stefan Sichermann featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news in newspaper and TV format. In October 2015, the Postillon had more than 14 million visitors.[1]Der Postillon also appears as an English version titled "The Postillon".[2]
Background
Stefan Sichermann, a PR expert, started the page 2008 as a hobby. Until 2011 he continued working for a PR agency.[3]The Onion was one of the inspirations for the website.[4] However the website itself claims a continuous history since October 1845.[5] The name Postillon refers to French postilion and is used in the German language in traditional or literary circumstances.
After a satirical article about the closure of film-piracy-page Kino.to went viral on Facebook and Twitter, Postillon received a much broader audience.[3][4] In the meantime, Sichermann started to run the page professionally, hired some assistants and financed the emissions via advertisements, a shop[6] and flattr donations. The social media impact of Postillon is higher than that of many official newsportals, such as Focus Online, Süddeutsche.de and Frankfurter Allgemeine.[7]
Scoops
Shortly after the death of Steve Jobs, the Postillon speculated about the technical features of the tech-guru's coffin and the inscription buried in my iTomb.[8] Angry comments of readers containing the phrase „ein Leser weniger“ (one reader fewer) gained notoriety as a running gag among the reader community.[3] Fans of Felix Baumgartner got angry about a Postillon entry claiming the record jump was declared invalid, since the Austrian crossed a foul line before the start signal.[9][10][11]
In 2012 German TV host Dieter Moor used a satirical notion about the delays at Berlin Brandenburg Airport without reference to the origin. The Postillon had implied, the ongoing delays would require to introduce a new form of German future tense.[12][13] Various media asked Moor to apologize and to mention the joke's origin.[14] Moor acted accordingly.[13][15]
Breaking, not yet officially confirmed news of Ronald Pofalla's change from politician to the executive at the railroad operator Deutsche Bahn were accompanied by a backdated, but otherwise correct Postillon post. As Postillon parody posts are often mistaken for real on social media, this did result in confusion among editorial offices and the general public. As a follow-up, Postillon's editor Stefan Sichermann criticized media for being less trust-worthy than Postillon.[16][17][18][19][20][21]
Postillon provides classical news, a newsticker, commentaries, advice columns, opinion editorials and fake surveys. In 2012 the Postillon published various articles in form of a book.[27] Also in 2012 the first fake TV emissions followed on YouTube.[28] Further videos are published in a cooperation with Yahoo[29] and some have been run on German Broadcaster NDR.[30][31]
