(WARNING: As will be abundantly clear, everything in this piece is fake. This especially includes the quotes.)

There was huge excitement in the news world this week as reports started coming through that massive amounts of animals were suddenly dying off in Arkansas. Not only would this story help end the slow news rut of the holidays, it also implied a coming end of the world in which we would all die horribly. However, this excitement soon turned to disappointment as the week went on and everyone was still alive.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper had joyfully heralded what, at the time, seemed like the approaching apocalypse with an interview with actor Kirk Cameron. A source amongst the Anderson Cooper 360 staff said that there was definitely “an air of sadness” in the studio now that it’s become increasingly clear that the dead animals were not actually a sign that all of life was coming to an end.

Asked for comment, Cooper responded, “Man, I really thought we were all going to be writhing in torment in a fiery abyss by now. Oh well, guess I’ll talk about how OWN’s doing.”

At Fox News, researchers had a brief uplift yesterday when there was a report that hundreds of fish were seriously ill in a pond in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, it turned out that it was merely caused by a leak at a local nuclear power plant. The field team sent to investigate was then forced to quickly turn around and drive to a Chicago pet store that promised sickly dogs.

“That was a huge disappointment,” said anchor Megyn Kelly. “We were so set on doing a report on how all of our lives would soon be over within the wink of an eye thanks to divine retribution. That’s what you learn in this business, though. Some things just don’t work out.”

Not every news personality has been taking the continued existence of man so well, however. Reports have surfaced that a producer at MSNBC has been arrested for slaughtering a number of livestock at an upstate New York farm. Details are still sketchy, but an eye witness claimed that the man was yelling about how “this was all a test” and that “we need to join in the murder.” Only then, he said, would God finally kill us all.

Of course, television news wasn’t the only area where the seemingly-imminent end times were eagerly awaited. Online outlets also expected a great amount of incoming traffic in the time leading up to and including the final moments before the human experiment was finally snuffed out. In fact, Mediaite’s Colby Hall explained that the animal death stories had brought in great numbers for the site. He did, though, point out that the anticipation of all of our demise had had to be handled differently when done from an online perspective.

“It’s a different world, the Internet. You don’t just come out and say you wish every day that God Almighty would pluck us out of the sky like a pesky gnat. No, not at all. You ironically say you wish every day that God Almighty would pluck us out of the sky like a pesky gnat. I mean, obviously you still hope for it, you just don’t say it out loud. The Internet’s a different ballgame. It’s hipper. Did you know some of our writers have their own Tumblrs?”

Whatever the case, the world has kept spinning and life has gone on.

“We’ll just keep doing our jobs,” said Kelly as she re-organized her office (she had gleefully destroyed it earlier in the week, expecting it to be unnecessary once she and everyone else was killed and returned to the void of nothingness from which we came). “Personally, I plan on doing a number of stories about how fat Kim Jong Il looks. Hopefully he’ll see it and nuke us all. Y’know, everyone’s just gotta do their part to ensure we’ll all be dead soon.”

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