How did the idea for a satirical newspaper come about?
Charles Firth was finishing his arts degree and wanted to avoid getting a real job. He wanted to recreate the fun he’d had editing Honi Soit (the student newspaper of the University of Sydney) on a professional basis, and is terrifyingly good at convincing his friends to do things. Charles has been a lifelong fan of news satire, even going back to high school, but the idea of The Chaser wasn’t just to be satirical. It was supposed to be an alternative newspaper with quality features, reviews, media and politics gossip and analysis, and so on. The satirical bits were slightly less awful, so we kind of gradually abandoned the rest.
