The article analyzed in this discussion post is titled “Proposal to Replace All Offensive Statues in BC With Statues of Bonnie Henry Unanimously Approved”, published in The Burrard Street Journal. At a first glance, Burrard Street Journal seems like a legitimate source of information – its layout is objectively well-coded, the images used are crisp and proper, and the appearance of the header looks similar to that of major news tabloids, such as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the New York Times. The fact that it is called Burrard Street Journal tells nothing to the uninformed reader, as they are likely to assume that it is an important locality somewhere in Canada.
The first hint that it is not a legitimate source of information would come from the slightly humorous title of the news, though not entirely so. Bonnie Henry is one of Canada’s head healthcare specialists, whose efforts kept the levels of COVID-19 in her locality to a minimum, which is something other regions in Canada failed to do. If anything, she deserves a statue more than colonial conquerors. Other clues come from the fact that the article lacks a date of publishing, and is posted by the collective entity of The Burrard Street Journal, rather than an individual author. The majority of credible news articles have individual authors and dates listed at the top or the bottom of the article. The final clue to the site’s illegitimacy is the humorous and clickbait-y titles of other news to the right and below the article. All of these factors indicate that The Burrard Journal is, in fact, a well-crafted satirical site, rather than a legitimate news source. Some readers, however, would find it hard to tell the difference.