I am not from the UK and in fact I am not even a native English speaker and yet I had always assumed that the tone of El Reg was a parody. I think it is quite obvious.
The tone of El Reg is very similar to many other tabloids though. Most don't take themselves seriously. I gave a few examples of The Sunday Sport in another post, but here's one from a Scottish tabloid, reporting about when someone caught a failed suicide bomber trying to attack an airport:
I don't tend to read many tabloids, but the Red Tops (predictably named because of their design) I've read on occasions do follow the same tongue-in-cheek writing style.
I think it's fair to say they can't all be parodies as you then have to question when a parody is so commonplace that it's no longer a parody; that it instead just becomes that normal thing.
I think some folks are confusing "parody" and "tabloid style".
The definition of parody is:
"a work created to imitate, make fun of, or comment on an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of satiric or ironic imitation." [0]
Websites that would fall into the "parody" category would be The Onion, The Daily Mash, Landover Baptist Church, The Poke etc. Another word to describe these types of sites would be satire.
The Register is not really a "parody" website because it's reporting on actual things that have happened (direct from source or through recycling), but the reporting and writing style is in the same vein or riffs off of the "tabloid journalism" style.
Tabloid journalism can be characterised as sensationalist, ridiculing and hyperbolic, with headlines designed to appeal to your more base instincts.
What The Register does, or attempts to do is inject humour into its reporting by using the tabloid style, it tries not to take itself too seriously. There is as you rightly point out a lot of "tongue in cheek" phrasing in many articles. For example, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I enjoy their headlines and bylines, e.g.:
"Criminal records checks 'unlawful' and 'arbitrary' rules High Court - Disclosing minor silliness no longer required, say judges" [1]
"Rust 1.6 released, complete with a stabilised libcore - A world without buffer overflows is what our children shall inherit" [2]
"Boeing just about gives up on the 747 - Even the cargo market's dried up for the Jumbo Jet. Next stop, elephant's graveyard?" [3]
Anyway, I wouldn't get too bogged down, in over analysing El Reg, you either get their sense of humour or you don't.
There are also an offshoot by ex-Register founder Mike Magee which reports in a similar style:
https://thehosh.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/kickedterrorist....
And here's one from The Sun
http://www.lazerhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/The-Sun...
I don't tend to read many tabloids, but the Red Tops (predictably named because of their design) I've read on occasions do follow the same tongue-in-cheek writing style.
I think it's fair to say they can't all be parodies as you then have to question when a parody is so commonplace that it's no longer a parody; that it instead just becomes that normal thing.