Made Up News is a British satirical news website. Nothing published here is real, and that’s rather the point.
We write fictional news stories inspired by the absurdities of everyday life, politics, technology, business, and everything in between. If you’ve ever read a genuine headline and thought “that can’t possibly be true,” there’s a fair chance we’ve written something even less plausible.
Our small editorial team produces daily satirical articles covering everything from Westminster’s latest reorganisation to the quiet desperation of office life. We aim for the kind of comedy that makes you exhale sharply through your nose on a packed commuter train, rather than the kind that requires a laugh track.
Our editorial approach
We aim for satire grounded in something recognisable. The best satire takes a real frustration, absurdity, or contradiction and dials it up just slightly past the point of plausibility. We’re less interested in jokes that punch down at private individuals, and more interested in jokes that puncture the small daily indignities of public life: the corporate non-apology, the political U-turn, the smart appliance that refuses to unlock the cupboard.
We don’t satirise private individuals who haven’t sought public attention, tragedies or genuine human suffering, identifiable victims of crime, or children. Public figures, large organisations, and the broader culture remain fair game, as has been the tradition of British satire since long before any of us were here.
Our writers
Articles appear under three editorial bylines: Tom Ashworth, Sarah Kelsey, and James Whitford. Each represents a distinct voice and beat within the publication, in the tradition of Private Eye’s pen names and many British satirical publications before us. They are not real individuals, and we don’t pretend otherwise.
Tom Ashworth covers politics, business, environment, and cyber security with the weary authority of someone who has attended too many council meetings.
Sarah Kelsey writes about science, technology, health, entertainment, and space, usually with one eyebrow raised.
James Whitford covers sport, gaming, food, automotive, and anything else that doesn’t require a suit. He is the only one of the three who claims to know what TikTok is.
How our stories are made
Our articles are produced with the assistance of AI writing tools, working from editorial briefs and prompts developed by the publication. Every piece is reviewed before publication. We mention this because we believe in being transparent about how content is made, and because Google increasingly asks publishers to be.
What this doesn’t mean: lazy, formulaic, or thrown together. Considerable effort goes into prompt design, voice consistency, fact-checking the real-world references that anchor the satire, and removing anything that isn’t actually funny. The AI is a tool. The publication is a publication.
Corrections and complaints
We don’t issue corrections to fictional reporting, on the basis that none of it was true in the first place. We do, however, take complaints seriously.
If you believe an article has crossed a line, misrepresented a real person beyond reasonable satirical use, or caused genuine harm, please get in touch via our contact page. A human will respond within five working days.
If you’ve spotted a typo, we are quietly grateful and will fix it without admitting to anything.
About this publication
Made Up News was founded in March 2026 and is published from Cardiff, United Kingdom. The publication is independently owned and operated. It is supported by display advertising; we don’t accept payment for stories, sponsored content, or favourable mentions of brands, partly on principle and partly because nobody has offered.
A note on what we do
Every article on this site is entirely fictional. The people quoted in our stories do not exist, unless they are public figures being satirised, in which case the quotes attributed to them are invented. We are not a news source. We are the opposite of a news source. Please do not cite us in an argument, a dissertation, or a court of law.
If a story makes you laugh, consider sharing it. If it makes you angry, please re-read this page.
Get in touch
For complaints, corrections, story tips, press enquiries, or general correspondence, please use our contact page.
You can also find us on X and Bluesky.
We don’t have a phone. We’re not that sort of operation.