In 2017, an ace team of crack reporters covertly assembled under conditions of extreme personal danger. Rising above the abject squalor known as “journalism”, they brought down a government, challenged societal norms, and demoralized an entire community. Now for the very first time it’s time to tell their unabridged, unexpurgated, and underfactual tale, in:

In the spring of 2017, budget money vanished, street hockey staff positions went unstaffed, crime in New York was at an all-time low, and there was nothing to read but newspapers, books, magazines, and the Internet. But hockey society lurched forward in its usual way and quotidian existence seemed bearable, if not enjoyable. It was only after the entire BTSH Media was laid off in a vicious Tweetstorm that the gormless citizens of Tompkins Square began to panic.

Under cover of darkness, a young editor of sixty-five years named Hsieh Yuan, newly arrived in America and speaking no English, sent anonymous cryptograms to eight other writers to schedule and convene a metaphorical orgy of surreptitious writing, though he later dialed it down to mere metaphorical phone sex. Some were afraid, others were merely drunk, but out of this clandestine meeting came the Rogue Media and its publication, the Blacktop Lampoon. And the world was never the same (although that cliché would also be true if none of this had happened– ed.).

For weeks this undisciplined and unprofessional gang of upstart ne’er-do-wells toiled in anonymity, unpaid, unfed, crippled, naked, cold, and wet, to expose the dirty secrets at the core of BTSH’s rotten administration. Pestering the commissioner with Freedom of Information Act requests led to nothing; the dedicated reporters were left to lay in their own filth like Andy Capp. Nobody seemed to know what was going on in the corridors of BTSH power. But through tireless investigative diligence and making shit up, the Rogue Media prospered, producing powerful pieces that promptly pulled in Pullitzer Prize after Pullitzer Prize:

It was later noticed that there is actually only one L in Pulitzer and that the medal usually features an engraving of Benjamin Franklin, not Chairman Mao. The surviving alumni of the Rogue Media are proud of this accolade nonetheless.

The early products were a little thin and a succession of anonymous hoaxes tarnished the Rogue Media’s credibility, but once this bumper car got rolling there was only one way to go: up. And up it goed, to challenge the very pinnacle of power with scandalous screeds and incendiary epistles the likes of which the world would never understand, and even game previews from such notable deceased luminaries as Samuel Beckett and Barnett Newman. The Lampoon mixed hard-hitting undercover exposés with hard-hitting undercover puff pieces, including nineteen weeks of coverage of Gut Rot’s opening game victory (unfortunately only two such articles survive).

But as the saying goes, when a train flies up too high, it can only come spiraling down. The Rogue Media met its demise the only way it knew how: through the tedious legal and fiduciary wrangling of diligent bureaucrats endeavoring to craft a budgetary subcommittee resolution appropriating funds to achieve fiscal solvency. Also, three of the Rogue Media’s reporters were flattened in their prime by a runaway hot dog stand, and one blew herself up trying to chug a Molotov cocktail. In any case, when the resolution passed, BTSH had its editorial wing restored to its rightful place in the BTSH ledgers, and the two-month roller coaster of the Rogue Media came to its inevitable, shuddering, gooey conclusion. But should the day ever return that nobody can scrape together enough dough for an editor, rest assured that the Rogue Media is ready for its comeback, like a phoenix sleeping patiently in an ashtray.

In researching background for this hard-hitting undercover exposé, I interviewed the surviving members of the Rogue Media to gather their recollections. Here’s what they had to say. (Unfortunately, fan favorite Ophelia Baulls was unavailable for comment as she is busy receiving electroconvulsive shock therapy for her ruinous addiction to high-grade Blistex.)

Q: What are your recollections of the Rogue Media offices?
Hatr Steak (HS): Shambles. The kind of place you could bring your side piece but not your wife.
Nancy Thompson (NT): It was horrible. It was in a basement, with no windows, and the ceiling leaked, and my ankle was chained to a desk and I was forced to write for 20 hours a day. But, on the bright side, there was a TV with Skinemax.
The Masked Elf (TME): There were no offices, it was all done online. Though I do remember a fishbowl.
Hsieh Yuan (HY): discount handbags gucci coach prada michael keurig 90% saving all-time
Fawn de Coques (FdC): Hazy. It was all hazy.

Fun fact: when the Rogue Media abandoned its HQ, the office was personally disassembled by Gene Hackman.

Q: Do you have any stories from that brief but insignificant moment of social and political upheaval?
FdC: Mainly that we agreed on very little, including our mission statement. 
TME: I was proud to be a part of the Rogue Media. That pride lasted for 2 hours and the apathy that followed lasted for two hours, followed by a lifetime of shame.
HS: I’ve felt less antagonism wearing an Avalanche Jersey at a Red Wings home game in 1997.
NT: One time, Hsieh hit a Sasquatch with his car, he brought it home thinking it was dead, but then it awoke and became part of our family.  Wait, that was Harry and the Hendersons. (The office also had a VHS of Harry and the Hendersons.)
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Q: What did you hate the most about the Rogue Media and each other?
HS: The lack of Diet Shasta in the community fridge.
FdC: I loved how we hated each other.
NT: I didn’t hate anything about the Rogue Media. It was the greatest thing to happen to BTSH since lime toss.
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Q: Did anyone sleep with anyone? OK, how about drugs? Did you ever sleep with drugs?
FdC: I drink to forget I drink.
NT: The 4 hours a day that we weren’t forced to write was essentially a non-stop orgy.
HS: Aren’t there babies about to be born in the BTSH family???
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Since the Rogue Media had no operating budget and thus could pay no salaries, the families of the reporters were forced to endure unimaginable hardships, like wearing beef jerky as clothing and getting hairstyles at Supercuts. This photo shows ace reporter Hatr Steak (top right) in April 2017, alongside his two wives and five or six kids. Conditions were unspeakably grim; this is actually a color photo.

Q: Now that you’ve accomplished your mission, do you have any regrets?
TME: Being part of the Rogue Media.
HS: That a house never actually fell on someone. 
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NT: Nope. We gave the people what they want.
FdC: I regret that I still don’t understand our mission.

Q: What are your feelings on the incoming administration?
HS: Talking about yourself in the third person doesn’t win you any friends.
FdC: Thor 4-eva. [Ms. de Coques may have thought I was referring to the media editor. Or she was drunk.] TME: Hicks is a scumbag and I don’t like him. But I do think we need a Pharroeux so I begrudgingly recognize his importance. Though I think Sarah H needs to grow. She quit growing at 5’3″, who’s to say she won’t quit on us?
NT: I think that Bernie Sanders is going to save this country. Wait, what? He didn’t?? Wait, then who DID win?? WHAT?? Oh man, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me… Oh, you meant BTSH? Sarah and Hicks are going to do a great job. I can see it already. I am also excited about the board.
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Q: If you had to do it all again, how would you avoid it?
HS: Gerrymandering.
TME: Nuke Brooklyn.
NT: I would use protection. Oh, you weren’t referring to the STDs from the orgies?
FdC: I drink to forget I drink.
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