Satire is a literary genre that employs humor when making commentary on individuals or activities and their perceived vices, shortcomings, or mistakes. In satire, humor is used to underscore an opinion or point about an issue or event. Most often, satirists use wit to criticize or attack something of which they disapprove. Parody (or spoofs), sarcasm, exaggeration, and analogy are defining literary tools of satire that help create its humorous tone.
In journalism, satire most commonly pokes fun at the news or uses parody portrayed as conventional news. While satirical news is defined by its comedic nature, using deadpan humor to create what is called “fake news,” its underlying objective is to make statements about real people, events, and trends, often with the intent of influencing change. In this way, it is usually fundamentally biased. This objective also highlights a key difference between the satire of news and parody of news: While parody uses humor for humor's sake, news satire employs humor to attain the greater result of social criticism and/or promote change. Politics and current events are common themes in news satire, although the genre is not limited to them.
Lubeck, Marisa A. "Satire of News." Encyclopedia of Journalism. Christopher H. Sterling. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2009. 1246-1249. SAGE Knowledge. Web. 23 Jan. 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412972048.n342