✍️ Write For The Potato
So You Want
To Write
For Us.
Good.
The news isn't slowing down. Reality isn't taking requests. And someone needs to stand in the middle of all of it with a completely straight face and describe exactly what is happening in a tone that makes clear we all know what is happening. That someone could be you.
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Daily "Is This Real?" Emails
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Source Material (The News)
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Exclamation Points Allowed
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Corrections Editor Needed (Urgently)
The Potato is looking for writers who understand that the funniest thing you can do with the news right now is report it accurately, in a completely straight tone, with the full weight of journalistic seriousness, and let the news do the rest. The news will do the rest. The news always does the rest. That's the whole thing.
We are not looking for people who write jokes. We are looking for people who write around jokes — who understand that the most devastating comic move available to a writer in this particular historical moment is to describe what is actually happening with complete sincerity and then get out of the way. The absurdity will find its own level. Your job is to hold the door open.
01
Find The Real Thing
Every Potato story starts with an actual thing that is actually happening. We don't invent the absurdity. We find it, name it, and describe it with the gravity it deserves and the gravity it absolutely does not deserve, simultaneously. The real news is the raw material. Reality is the co-author. Reality is prolific.
02
Play It Completely Straight
No winking. No nudging. No "can you believe this?" The deadpan is the engine. The moment you break character to let the reader know you're in on the joke, the joke dies. Trust the reader. Trust the news. Trust the potato. The potato has never let anyone down. Except the Irish. But that was a different situation, and we have addressed it in our corrections policy.
03
Write Like A Real Newspaper
Ledes, nut grafs, pull quotes, bylines, the works. The more it looks like actual journalism, the funnier it is. We have a stylesheet. Use it spiritually even if you can't use it literally. A great Potato byline is half the joke. "Senior Correspondent For Things In General" is a byline. "Writer" is not.
04
Find The Detail That Breaks You
Every great Potato story has one detail — one specific, real, almost unbearably on-the-nose fact — that does all the work. Find that detail. Put it somewhere unexpected. Let it land without comment. In our politics piece, that detail is: "The salmon was excellent." We did not explain it. We did not need to.
05
End With The Correction
Every article should end with an Editor's Note or Correction that is funnier than the article. This is a requirement. It is also, we have found, surprisingly easy to achieve. The correction is where the mask slips exactly one millimeter. That millimeter is everything.
We Want
- Deadpan. Always deadpan.
- Real news, barely touched
- Specific, devastating details
- Earnest outrage played as fact
- Headlines that hurt a little
- Corrections that are the point
- Bylines like "Senior Correspondent For Things In General"
- The laugh that turns into a sigh
- Local news. City councils. Zoning variances that became referendums on civilization.
- Writers who are fine. Mostly fine.
Please Do Not Send
- Jokes that explain themselves
- Completely invented scenarios
- Partisan screeds dressed as satire
- Anything that punches down
- Headlines with exclamation points
- The word "sheeple"
- Anything your uncle forwarded you
- AI-generated content (we can tell)
- Pitches longer than the article
- Anything requiring a disclaimer longer than the piece
"The application form is below. Fill it out sincerely. We will respond with equal sincerity — which is to say: eventually, and with genuine feeling."
— The Potato Submissions Desk, which is a desk in the sense that it is a place where things are sent
Frequently Asked Questions
Do You Pay Writers?
We intend to. We are working on it. In the meantime, we offer publication, an audience, a byline of your choosing, and the specific satisfaction of having written something funny about something that is not funny, which is its own reward and also, we acknowledge, not a form of currency that pays rent.
How Long Does It Take To Hear Back?
We respond to all submissions. The timeline is "eventually," which we define as "sooner than Congress acts on anything, later than you'd like, and with more genuine engagement than you might expect from a publication whose name is a root vegetable."
Can I Write Under A Pen Name?
Absolutely. In fact, we encourage it. "Reginald P. Vaguely" is a pen name. "Dr. Constance Obvious-Findlay, Ph.D." is a pen name. "Wendell Forecast-Wrongly" is, improbably, a real name. We have not told Wendell. We are not going to.
What If My Story Is Rejected?
We will tell you why, specifically, in the tone of a Potato editor's note: honest, a little rueful, and ending on something that is almost an encouragement. We do not send form rejections. We are a small publication. We have time for feelings.
Can I Submit Something Local?
Local news is the beating heart of The Potato. The absurdity of national events is well-documented. The absurdity of a city council meeting about a zoning variance that somehow became a referendum on the nature of civilization — that is underreported, and we want it desperately.
Is The Potato Hiring Full-Time?
The Corrections Editor position remains open. The hours are long. The pay is forthcoming. The work is, genuinely, important in a way that is hard to explain at dinner parties but that you will feel in your bones every time you read the news and think: someone should say something about this. We are saying something. Come say it with us.
A Final Note: The Potato believes that humor is not the opposite of seriousness. It is what seriousness looks like when it has been awake too long and has decided that laughing is the only honest response left. We take the news seriously. We take the writing seriously. We take the potato, perhaps, less seriously than we should. But we are working on it. Something should probably be done about that. We'll form a committee.
The news is writing itself.
Help us keep up. 🥔
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