- The Clinic
"The Clinic", a
Chile an satirical/investigative newspaper, was founded by Patricio Fernández Chadwick in November 1998. The name was inspired by the fact thatPinochet was first incarcerated in Britain inside a private clinic called "The Clinic". In its first incarnation, it was only a few pages long, distributed only within Santiago, and costing 100 pesos (22 U.S. cents at the time). Over the course of its short lifetime it has changed drastically, and now costs 700 pesos (U$1.30 as of June 2006) and averages forty pages. Today, it is published every Thursday during normal operation times (it usually takes February off) and published its 254th edition on7 August 2008 .Humor
One of its humor features is done in a style reminiscent of
Sergio Aragones ' marginal cartoons inMad 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 leads to 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 Friends of the President, an organization established to serve as a paramilitary presidential bodyguard for Allende) had about 70,000 members.
**To be on the front page ofLas Últimas Noticias , all you have to do is bare your butt in a disco.
**Barney isGodzilla 's gay son.Editorial stance
The Clinic has nothing but utter contempt for almost all other media outlets in the country, and mocks politicians of all stripes from Pinochet to the late
Gladys Marín (although there is a notorious bias against the right wing political parties). On separate occasions, it has said that "La Segunda " comes out in the afternoon because it takes a while to make up the news," "Reading Punto Final (Period, end of sentence) leaves you in a comma," "After you read "El Mercurio " you know two things: that the joke is lame," and "After you read "La Tercera ", you know two things: that the joke is lame and so is the front page."
Its main criticism of mainstream newspapers is their track record of 3 years of staunch opposition toAllende ; 16 years and 6 months of craven submission to and acceptance of Pinochet, no friend of the free press; and 15 years of lazy reporting and opposition to the centrist and center-left governments that have ruled Chile in that span.External links
* [http://www.theclinic.cl The Clinic] Web site (in Spanish)
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