Last week, the OBSERVER published a satirical "Letter of Apology From BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN" for not doing enough to stop DONALD TRUMP. I'm unclear if writer TIM SOMMER was chastising the Boss for actually not doing sufficient political groundwork or if he was slyly making fun of liberals for looking to rock stars for electoral salvation. Or both. Or neither. Satire is sometimes harder to read than it is to write. Anyway, Springsteen's name was in the headline in 28-point bold Times type. Sommer's name was beneath it in 9-point, non-bold Helvetica. If you missed the byline, you're not stupid. The page was practically designed to make sure you would. (If you made it through the story's 38 paragraphs, you also would have seen the signoff: "Not actually Bruce." And you would have been among the tiny percentage of readers that gets that far in any online article.) If you missed the humor in the piece, it's because it isn't there. And if you missed the satire, as some readers did, it may be because a) it's a believable epistle, and b) the Observer has a well-earned reputation for serious journalism and criticism. It has trained its readers to be trusting. Sommer's piece exploits that trust and subverts it. There's a reason we don't link to parody and satire on REDEF, not even on APRIL FOOLS' DAY. Satire requires context—an understanding not only of the subject, but also the voice of the satirist. Spring it on trusting and unsuspecting readers and/or remove it from the context by turning it into a link, and you're now in the business of actively fooling people, regardless of what you think your intentions are. There are enough sites trying to trick all of us; no one needs the mainstream media to add to that confusion—or to double down on it, a week later, with this self-congratulatory essay in which the Observer blames its own readers for missing the point. As if it had written "BORN IN THE USA" and we had missed the message. "It's fascinating," JUSTIN JOFFE writes in the new piece, "how so few in this country have any capacity for satire, and it's a little bit troubling, too." I assume he's referring to someone like me, but maybe in a super-satirical double-cross he's actually talking about his own paper. Or maybe there's a joke here somewhere and it's on me... CMJ's college-radio charts have gone missing... SPOTIFY adding 1,000 jobs (thank you, artists and songwriters everywhere) and moving US headquarters to 4 World Trade Center. This may be of interest to you if you're thinking of buying the company... KESHA v. DR. LUKE, continuing... ADELE "can sing, sing" whereas BEYONCÉ is just "very beautiful to look at," according to DO WE REALLY HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS AGAIN?... RIP STUART MCLEAN and E-DUBBLE.