Background

It's been a long journey for the Daily Grind, from wondering aloud whether human relationships were safe from economic rationalism (Local marriage deregulated) to calling George Bush a communist (Bush suspends capitalism to deal with national crisis).

Along the way we've criticised others through the use of cunning pseudonyms (Local man proves self out of existence) and through the use of less than cunning pseudonyms (Hollingworth advises fire victims: fires never happened). We've been tough on the first world (EU proposes "fair but rigged" trade framework) and the third (North Korea claims to possess "fuel" in daring "sea of fire" threat); on Labor (Unions not unduly dominant in ALP, unions tell ALP to tell voters) and the Liberals (PM concedes: asylum-seekers may not have been insect-like battle droids). And we've always found time for ourselves (Embittered dropout wants more time for family, other interests).

The Daily Grind Network began a variety of unrelated news satire projects: the National Craprag (a photocopied circular in 1998), the Daily Grind (a marginally popular news website in 2001), InnateLine (a franchise of high school student videos in 1995-96), News Revue (a university revue project in 2001) and Ground Daily Software (in 2002).

Today, the Network is exactly equal to the sum of its parts, only now the website looks better.

The Team

Founder of the Daily Grind and sometime companion to his parents' retarded dog Merlin, Joe Stella has a degree in "the other side" of his degree—that's the side invisible to employers. Sadly, the visible side is Arts. The funniest guy he's ever met, Joe Stella has been described as a sociopath and lives in an abandoned Millennium Train with his laptop, Kacang. Refreshed and invigorated after a year of writing Governing from the verandah: the communitybuilders.nsw discussion forum as platform for social government (his honours thesis), Joe returns to write with a new-ish team of comedy heavyweights. That may change with more exercise and less meetings with the Colonel.

Famed for having "no arse" and single-handledly destroying the very notion of shareware, Damian Prendergast is a seasoned revuer, Mac addict and enemy of crockery in all its forms. A straight shooter with an odd sense of humour, Damian writes news and software as he has done for the past two years at the Grind.

With a haircut to set your watch by and a shirt to draw your graphs on, Jebediah Cole may or may not be the Governor of Florida. An important new voice in science, literature and economics, Jeb is routinely compared to Adolf Hitler, who also studied an Austrian School. Jeb contributes serious in-depth features and flippant news items.

In the past, we've also showcased the works of Thomas Robinson, Daniel Gilbourd, Earl Abraham, Adam Roff, Emma McKenna, Christopher Hague and Jim Forbes. They're all good too.

How to read an article

Since 2003, the Daily Grind has written news satire in a particular style. The first paragraph is almost always a summary of a news story that has recently appeared in print or on the web, and often names the source. This paragraph is not a joke—it's designed to help readers unfamiliar with the story get up to speed.

Subsequent paragraphs are fictional, except where another media outlet is quoted. Of course, if all else fails, assume that the whole thing is one big joke. Resemblance to actual comedy is coincidental.