In this post-Daily Show world, it’s become commonplace to consume a humorous take on a news story before even reading the actual news story itself. Perhaps this is for the best, for if there’s one thing the news of the world is not getting, it’s easier to digest.

“It’s a horrifying world we live in” nowadays, said Dan Abramson, editor-in-chief of Funny or Die News, “and it never ends.” Having our humor-dessert first “is obviously not going to make a news story palatable,” he continued, “but it’s at least a palatable way of consuming it.”

Funny or Die’s new iOS app, News Flash, is the ultimate in palatable news consumption. It’s essentially a sleeker version of the aptly named “News Diarrhea” feature on the FOD website, with each nugget of content consisting of little more than a headline, an accompanying joke and a looping gif-like video. A link takes the user to the full story on a reputable website, should they wish to eat their vegetables after having the comedy-dessert portion of the news. Recent headlines have included gems such as, “A recent survey found that 40% of Republicans don’t believe in global warming. Ironically their rhetoric accounts for the majority of the world’s hot air.” And, “Six Kansas school districts are ending the school year early because of budget cuts. Actually eight are closing, but the person who counted went to school in Kansas.”

Working in the mobile space is “a lot of fun,” said Abramson, because users are generally more focused when using an app. Their attention span might be shorter, but during that abbreviated time, it’s trained only on whatever is in front of it. As opposed to a computer screen where many windows might be open at once and “you don’t know what else they’re looking at,” said Abramson. “They could have 10 other tabs open. But in [News Flash] they’re just clicking jokes. Most likely they’re consuming it in chunks, so you can play with sequencing and pacing and have a lot of fun with that.”

The app has allowed Abramson’s team to tinker with the format and do things that aren’t generally possible when dealing with written web content. For instance, the writers can implement what comedians refer to as “callbacks,” where a joke repeats or re-contextualizes a previous joke. In the stand-up world or on a TV show, it’s easy to refer back to and build upon previously told jokes, but the fractured nature of Internet consumption makes it hard to deliver a similar experience to a website visitor. On News Flash, however, tools like slideshows can be utilized, wherein “you could have a joke in the second slide and then eight slides later make a callback to that joke,” said Abramson, “operating under the assumption that if you’ve gotten to that tenth slide, you had to pass through the second slide to get there.”

After years of satiating the nation’s voracious appetite for real news served up funny, Stewart’s departure from The Daily Show in August leaves a glut of ravenous consumers anxious to be fed. Funny or Die, generally thought of as a web portal for funny videos, has now launched not one but two apps skewering current events, News Flash and the also recently launched Funny or Die Weather app. The next great placating of the masses through comedy may not come from a TV production at all.

“It seems like every reputable news outlet has a dedicated app,” said Abramson. “And now a non-reputable news outlet does, too.”

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