Charles Dickens, celebrated novelist and journalist, believed that his greatest ability as a writer was to make people laugh. Yet, to date, humor has been strangely marginalized in journalism, communication and media studies.
This innovative book draws together the work of seventeen writers to show that, starting in the 1640s during the English Civil War, and continuing through to the present time, humor has indeed been an important ingredient of journalism. Countries studied include Australia, Britain, Canada, Chile and the United States. The Funniest Pages is divided into four sections: «Seriously Funny, From Past to Present,» «Unsolemn Columnists,» «This Sporting Life» and a final section, «Have Mouse, Will Laugh,» which looks at humor in online journalism. Chapters examine Joseph Addison, Richard Steele and the birth of social and political satire; Allen Ginsberg, Mad magazine, and the culture wars of the 1950s; John Clarke and the power of satire in journalism, and more.

David Swick is Associate Director of Journalism at the University of King¿s College, Canada. He was a journalist for more than 20 years before moving into teaching. His work includes CBC Radio documentaries, TV documentaries, nearly 2,000 newspaper columns, and one nonfiction book.
Richard Lance Keeble is the winner of the National Teaching Fellowship 2011 ¿ the highest award for teachers in higher education in the UK ¿ and recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Journalism Education, 2014. He has written and edited 35 books and is Chair of the Orwell Society.

Contents: David Swick/Richard Lance Keeble: Journalism - So Often Funnier than Fiction - Nicholas Brownlees: News Mockery in the English Civil War and Interregnum Press - Dean Jobb: «Written with Powers Truly Comick»: Joseph Addison, Richard Steele and the Birth of Social and Political Satire - Ben Stubbs: Travel Writing and Humor: From Dickens and Twain to the Present Day - Mary M. Cronin: Sifting Comic Wheat from Western Chaff: Alex E. Sweet, John Armoy Knox, and the Humor
of the American West - Mark J. Noonan: Howling Mad: Mad Magazine, Allen Ginsberg, and the Culture Wars of the 1950s - David Swick: Comedy in Tragedy: Humor in the Literary Journalism of James Cameron - Hendrik Michael: Words! Wisdom! Gibberish!: Verbal Irony in Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 - Antonio Castillo: The Clinic: Satirizing and Interrogating Power in post-Pinochet Chile - Carolyn Rickett: Deadly Funny: How John Diamond Used Humor to Tackle the Taboo Subjects of Cancer and Dying - James Waller-Davies: «Common sense dancing»: Clive James's Invention of the Television Column as a Comic Genre - Matthew Ricketson: John Clarke and the Power of Satire in Journalism - Rob Steen: A Sporting Chance: Fun and Failure - Both On and Off the Field - Dermot Heaney: Bowling Them Over and Over with Wit: Forms and Functions of Humor in Live Text Cricket Coverage - Sue Joseph: Harmer, Humor and The Hoopla: In the Vanguard of Australian Female Comedy - Asif Hameed: Speaking Truth to Power in 140 Characters or Less: Political Satire, Civic Engagement and Journalism - Blake Lambert: Twitter and the Revitalization of Black Humor in Journalism - Kevin M. Lerner: How Spy, the Iconic Satirical Magazine of the 1980s, Invented Contemporary Snark, and How Internet Journalism Has Misappropriated It - Richard Lance Keeble and David Swick: Putting Fun into the Curriculum.