Weird news: Iranian news agency reposts Onion article

[Douglas Carpenter]

The Fars News Agency reprinted a parody story on how rural whites prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama

By Natasha Lennard

A major Iranian news agency, the Fars News Agency, is evidently not familiar with America’s most popular parody news source. Without attribution, the news site affiliated with the Islamic Revolutions Guards Corps reprinted an Onion story, which read, “According to the results of a Gallup poll released Monday, the overwhelming majority of rural white Americans said they would rather vote for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than US President Barack Obama.”

The Onion’s made-up poll was accompanied by made-up comments, reprinted in full by the Fars News Agency, including: ”[Ahmadinejad] takes national defense seriously, and he’d never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does.”

http://www.salon.com/writer/natasha_lennard/

here is a link to the onion article:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/gallup-poll-rural-whites-prefer-ahmadinejad-to-oba,29677/

[Laurajr]

1. I don't like

The onion because too many people hear the stories that believe them and never find out they aren't true.

[Douglas Carpenter]

3. sometimes the stories sound just plausible enough - that they have a believability element

I remember when a number of wild animals escaped from some private zoo in Ohio - the Onion put out a news release that Pat Robertson had said that God caused those animals to escape so that they would bite gay people. Of course the story wasn't true..but at first glance it certainly sounded like something Pat Roberson might say.

[Grateful for Hope]

4. Exactly. n/t

[Scuba]

5. I like the Onion for that same quality, which I call "sarcasm deficiency detection".

[Jackpine Radical]

6. …or sarcasm detection deficiency?

I hadn't noticed that the Onion was deficient in sarcasm.

[Scuba]

9. I knew it sounded awkward when I wrote it.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. The people who fall for those things ARE the joke, they are the punchline others

laugh at. Without those idiots the satire is not half as funny.

[Lightbulb_on]

12. It isn't just Onion stories..

Parodies get put out and people accept them as fact all the time.

There's a military one that people fall for as well. Also, that "I'm dreaming of a White President" picture of the protest sign that was so popular a few weeks ago was a protester mocking the Tea Party.

Just shows that sources and context might not always be apparent.

[rock]

13. The Onion does that on purpose

It's "wry humor". If you cannot tell whether it's serious or humorous, then they consider their article successful. Welcome aboard DU. Stay a spell.

[Edweird]

2. Ok, THAT is awesome!

[undeterred]

8. Then they should really like "Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex"

America is The Great Satan.

[RevStPatrick]

11. Ummm...

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/02/congressman-falls-months-old-onion-story-about-planned-parenthood-abortionplex/48344/

Congressman Falls for The Onion's Planned Parenthood 'Abortionplex' Story

Meet John Fleming, the unfortunate Republican U.S. Representative from Louisiana who made that wonderful and all-too-common mistake of thinking that an Onion article was real and telling his Facebook followers to read it. Fleming's Facebook status was posted by Literally Unbelievable, a Tumblr that collects images of Facebookers who think Onion satires are the real deal and post them on their walls.

And another source:

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/02/congressman-abortionplex-facebook-onion-john-fleming.html

[no_hypocrisy]

10. As fundamentalists are generally literalists, it isn't hard to see why

satire would be mistaken for fact by an Iranian news agency.