Ian MacIntyre’s Beaverton tale

Almost ten years after leaving his East Coast hometown of Dartmouth, after graduating from Dalhousie’s Theatre Program and setting off to study improv comedy at Toronto’s Second City, Ian MacIntyre began his career at the Canadian satirical “news” outlet The Beaverton, writing fake headlines. His role would soon evolve into helping lead a full-blown multimedia satire empire that has included a website, TV show and a podcast.

“Somewhere around the TV show in 2016, I got promoted to editor,” he says. “Basically, I post articles, edit them, sometimes rewrite or add jokes. I also do a mediocre job of helping run our social media. Oh, and I still write articles myself.”

I’m just happy anybody is reading anything these days. Still, it’s nice that we consistently get ranked as a more trustworthy news source than The Rebel. – Ian MacIntyre

Satire, however, is no joke to MacIntyre. Inspired early on by shows such as This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Saturday Night Live, he’s long admired those who could balance wit with pointed critique. As a kid, he even aspired to be a political cartoonist like Nova Scotia’s Bruce McKinnon, whom he met as a young child in Antigonish.

Today, The Beaverton continues that legacy of irreverent yet incisive commentary. So what’s the secret to its 15-year run? “We make too little money for anyone to bother shutting us down,” says MacIntyre. “That, plus Canadians love seeing ourselves reflected in media.”

MacIntyre goes on to say that The Beaverton “can afford to be punchier or angrier than some other Canadian satire, mostly because we have zero oversight.”

With that limited oversight, the team enjoys rare editorial freedom to push boundaries carefully. “There’s no exact science, but we think a lot about the target of our joke. Like not making fun of civilians in a war, but the politicians who chose to bomb them,” MacIntyre says of drawing the line in satire. “We don’t always get it right, and when we don’t, we try to learn from it and apologize when warranted.”

If Canadians see themselves in The Beaverton, it’s often through a funhouse mirror. The site’s headlines are famously ridiculous, yet, to MacIntyre’s continued disbelief, they are still sometimes taken at face value.

We assume it’s so silly no one could mistake it for real, but it happens. – Ian MacIntyre

“We assume it’s so silly no one could mistake it for real, but it happens,” he says. “I once wrote a piece about Chris Hadfield heckling the movie Gravity, and apparently he got asked about it a lot in interviews.”

MacIntyre even found himself having to apologize in person to Hadfield. “It feels very awkward to apologize for something so frivolous to someone who’s been to actual space.”

MacIntyre sees the accidental credibility as baffling and flattering despite the mix-ups. “I’m just happy anybody is reading anything these days,” he says. “Still, it’s nice that we consistently get ranked as a more trustworthy news source than The Rebel.”

In recent years, The Beaverton has expanded its reach, recently reviving its podcast, The Beaverton Weekly Report. Initially paused during the TV show’s production run, a successful Patreon campaign has buoyed the podcast’s comeback. “Nowadays, podcasts seem to be where a lot of people are getting their information from, or at least sarcastic opinions, so it feels like a good fit for a group of overly-opinionated comedy writers,” says MacIntyre.

Even as digital platforms present new hurdles—like Meta briefly classifying The Beaverton as a “news outlet,” threatening its visibility—the team has found ways to turn setbacks into satire. “We posted a cease-and-desist letter to Meta saying that calling us ‘news’ is false, insulting, and defamatory,” says MacIntyre.

When asked what has sustained him at The Beaverton over the years, MacIntyre cites what appears to be an obsession with news, especially the news that makes him unhappy. “It feels good to channel that frustration into a joke, post it, and see readers respond—sometimes all within the hour.”

It also helps to have a team that can take the biggest stories of the day and turn them into something they know readers come to The Beaverton for. “Obviously, anything with a Canadian angle or that we can crassly wedge a Canadian angle into,” he says. “It’s easy to focus too much on Trump stuff, so we try to really pick our moments with him.”

And sometimes, the target comes from close to home. “One main highlight – which will sound like pandering, because it is – is when I write an article about Nova Scotia that does well,” he says. “I wrote one a few years back about Woody the Talking Christmas Tree eating children, and now it gets reposted every year.”

Fifteen years in, The Beaverton shows no signs of letting up, and neither does MacIntyre. Unless, of course, Hollywood calls. Then, all bets are off.