The Clinic
Encyclopedia
The Clinic is a Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

an satirical/investigative newspaper founded by Patricio Fernández Chadwick in November 1998. The name was inspired by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...

's October 1998 arrest in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 at The London Clinic
The London Clinic
The London Clinic is a private healthcare organisation based in central London. Although it maintains several consulting rooms in the traditional doctors' street of Harley Street, the main hospital site is on the corner of Devonshire Place and the Marylebone Road...

, which bears the name The Clinic on its façade. In its first incarnation, it was only a few pages long, distributed only within Santiago
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...

, and costing 100 pesos
Chilean peso
The peso is the currency of Chile. The current peso has circulated since 1975, with a previous version circulating between 1817 and 1960. The symbol used locally for it is $. The ISO 4217 code for the present peso is CLP. It is subdivided into 100 centavos, although no centavo denominated coins...

 (US¢22 at the time). Over the course of its short lifetime it has changed drastically, and now costs 700 pesos (US$1.50 in 2011) and averages forty pages. Today, it is published every Thursday during normal operation times (it usually takes February off) and published its 262nd edition on October 2, 2008.

Humor

One of its humor features is done in a style reminiscent of Sergio Aragones
Sergio Aragonés
Sergio Aragonés Domenech is a cartoonist and writer best known for his contributions to Mad Magazine and creator of the comic book Groo the Wanderer....

' marginal cartoons in Mad Magazine: at the bottom of each page (except the covers), the statement Sabía usted que...( Did you know that...?) is printed and followed by a remark which can be obscene, witty, snarky, or impenetrable, but is always very short.
  • Examples:
    • It's true: marijuana
      Cannabis (drug)
      Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...

       leads to coke
      Coca-Cola
      Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...

      , fries, two burgers, three ice creams...
    • Ghosts don't believe in people.
    • If everybody who says they were there, really was there, the GAP (Group of Personal Friends, an organization established to serve as a paramilitary presidential bodyguard for Allende
      Salvador Allende
      Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....

      ) had about 70,000 members.
    • To be on the front page of Las Últimas Noticias
      Las Últimas Noticias
      Las Últimas Noticias is a Chilean, daily middle market tabloid newspaper owned by El Mercurio SAP....

      , all you have to do is bare your butt in a disco.
    • Barney
      Barney & Friends
      Barney and Friends, also referred to by HiT Entertainment as Barney the Friendly Dinosaur, is an independent children's television show produced in the United States, aimed at children from ages 1-8...

       is Godzilla
      Godzilla
      is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd. The monster has appeared in numerous other media incarnations including video games,...

      's gay son.
    • For the cost of a missile, you can make 25,000 envelopes with anthrax.

Editorial stance

The Clinic has shown contempt for almost all other media outlets in the country, and usually mocks politicians of all stripes from Pinochet to the late communist leader Gladys Marín
Gladys Marín
Gladys del Carmen Marín Millie was a Chilean activist and political figure. She was Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Chile and then president of the PCCh until her death...

.

Its criticism of mainstream newspapers includes their track record of craven submission to Pinochet.

The Clinic is also critical of what it calls "lazy reporting" and many times has criticized the centrist and center-left governments that have ruled Chile after its transition to democratic government.

See also

  • The Onion
    The Onion
    The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...

    , a US counterpart
  • Private Eye
    Private Eye
    Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...

    , a UK counterpart
  • Frank
    Frank (magazine)
    Frank is a bi-weekly Canadian scandal or satirical magazine published since 1987 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.A separate publication in Ottawa, Ontario, of the same name was published from 1989 to 2004 and then revived from 2005 to 2008...

    , a Canadian counterpart
  • The Phoenix
    The Phoenix (magazine)
    The Phoenix is Ireland's best selling political and current affairs magazine. Inspired by the British magazine Private Eye, and a source of investigative journalism in Ireland...

    , an Irish counterpart
  • El Jueves
    El Jueves
    is a Spanish satirical weekly magazine published in Barcelona. Its complete title is ""...

    , a Spanish counterpart
  • Le Canard enchaîné
    Le Canard enchaîné
    Le Canard enchaîné is a satirical newspaper published weekly in France. Founded in 1915, it features investigative journalism and leaks from sources inside the French government, the French political world and the French business world, as well as many jokes and humorous cartoons.-Early...

    , a French counterpart
  • Titanic
    Titanic (magazine)
    Titanic is a German monthly satirical magazine based in Frankfurt. It has a circulation of approximately 100,000.- History :Titanic was founded in 1979 by former contributors and editors of Pardon, a satirical monthly, which the group had left after conflicts with its publisher...

    , a German counterpart
  • Academia Catavencu
    Academia Catavencu
    Academia Caţavencu is a Romanian satirical magazine founded in 1991 and made famous by its investigative journalism. Academia Caţavencu also owns Radio Guerrilla , an FM radio station with national coverage ; Tabu, a women's magazine, Superbebe, a magazine for new parents, Aventuri la pescuit, a...

    , a Romanian counterpart
  • Moskovskaya Komsomolka
    Moskovskaya Komsomolka
    Moskovskaya Komsomolka was a satirical newspaper published weekly in Russia . The newspaper had a fixed 32 page layout.-Presentation:...

    , a Russian counterpart
  • Teacher's Diary
    Teacher's diary
    Over the course of two weeks in April 2004, the British satirical magazine Private Eye published a journal, Teacher's Diary, written by an anonymous maths teacher at what he called "a bog standard comprehensive".The diary described an undercurrent of pupil misbehaviour and incompetence in the...

  • Noseweek
    Noseweek
    Noseweek is a South African investigative magazine published by Chaucer Publications that has appeared monthly since June 1993. It is best known for regular legal action against it, such as a failed bid at interdiction by banking group FirstRand and defamation actions by judge Fikile Bam and...

    ,a South African counterpart
  • Hermano Lobo

External links

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