This is an on-the-media podcast extra. I'm Bob Garfield. This week on The Big Show, you heard our

reporting from Brazil, a country facing a convergence of crises, economic, political, criminal,

even medical. Together, they make you a little short of breath, especially on the eve of next

month's Rio Olympics. We noted amid the cavalcade of calamity, an ironic coup de grace, the shooting of a jaguar,

Brazil's national animal, at an Olympic torchlighting ceremony.

It's a moment in Brazil where you have to laugh, not to cry.

Enter Sensationalista, the sensationalist,

a site with web traffic so large it would be the country's fourth largest newspaper if it were actually printing the news.

But it's modeled on the onion entirely satirical.

Nolito Fernandez is one of the founders of sensationalista.

Hi, my bar.

We met him and his wife, Martha Mendoza, another founder, at their Rio home.

That's because the site doesn't even have an office, in part because advertisers are hesitant to jump on board.

The two have day jobs as writers for a Brazilian version of Saturday Night Live.

If someone now came to me and tell me, Nelito, I have a great idea for a website.

It's going to be a fake news website with absurd news. I know, dude,

that's called reality. You can't have success in this. But somehow we succeed.

Brazil's crisis has been very good for sensationalista.

Two years ago, their Facebook page had 30,000 fans.

Today, it has more than 2.8 million.

When reality is absurd, when you have a minister for 15 minutes,

in 15 minutes he's not like with ex-president Lula,

...