Wall Street Journal parody featuring topless Anne Coulter (NSFW illustration)

A new printed parody of staple business newspaper The Wall Street Journal has executives at the paper embarrassed and upset. At least we can assume they have a problem with it since a WSJ employee has been trying to buy up copies on news stands, using different excuses. The parody, called "My Wall St. Journal" looks realistically like the actual paper, with the same font and inset illustration style. The articles are funny riffs on the conservative stance of new WSJ owner, tycoon Rupert Murdoch, in the tradition of similar fake news like The Onion.

The tabloid-format satire, “My Wall Street Journal,” mostly sets out to skewer The Journal’s new owner, the News Corporation, and its chairman, Rupert Murdoch, with swipes at News properties like Fox News, The New York Post and The Journal itself. It takes aim at other targets, too, including Wall Street firms and traders, and assorted politicians and pundits.

It was not supposed to go on sale until this week, but some newsstands began selling it early. Last Thursday, Alexander Laurence was working at one such stand in Los Angeles, chatting with a customer, David Metz, when, both of them say, a man in a shirt with a Journal logo asked if anyone had seen a paper that looked sort of like The Journal.

“This guy comes by all the time to bring promotional stuff for The Wall Street Journal — bags, coin trays, stickers,” Mr. Laurence said.

Sure enough, they found what he was looking for. “He grabbed them all, said, ‘I need to buy all of these,’ ” Mr. Laurence said. “He had been going around to different stands, buying them.”

The man paid with a corporate American Express card. “At first he’s saying they have to make a correction or it’s not supposed to be out yet,” Mr. Metz said. “But then he said these are not published by The Wall Street Journal.”

[From NY Times via Huffington Post]

The My Wall St. Journal creators also have a YouTube video of a Rupert Murdoch lookalike getting pissed off in a board meeting about their paper. They have a website, wsjparody.com, but it's mostly an advertisement for their print version, which is also available on Amazon.com if your local newsstand doesn't have a copy once the WSJ suits buy them all up. As a blogger, I can't help but think they're missing an opportunity by not providing their content online. WSJ.com requires a subscription to view full articles, and they're missing a money-making opportunity by not copying their online format too.