Iranian news agency falls for Obama-Ahmadinejad spoof story

Report By: Nina Rai

Chicago, 29 Sept., 2012

Amidst the heightening tensions between arch rivals Iran and Israel, with U.S being a valuable ally of the latter, comes a piece of news to lighten up the atmosphere, a bit.

An Iranian media agency apparently has fallen hook-line-sinker for a make-believe story published by the U.S satirical website The Onion, under the headline: ‘Gallup Poll. Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad To Obama.’

Duped by the story, Fars, a leading Iranian news agency went on to publish a fake poll result from the satirical news website which claimed that an overwhelming majority of rural white Americans would prefer to vote for the Iranian President rather than their own President, Barack Obama.

Iran's Fars News Agency has swallowed the story to such an extent that without verifying the authenticity of the report, it has gone ahead and published the article by The Onion word-for-word, probably thrilled at the thumbs-up for their president by the Americans.

Citing the results of a fake poll by Gallup, The Onion article said that 77 percent of rural Caucasian voters would go to a baseball game or have beer with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ( a man known for his diatribes against the West), rather than support President Obama.

The Chicago-based spoof news organization quoted a bogus American called Dale Swiderski, who said: "I like him (Mr Ahmadinejad) better." Ahmadinejad "takes national defence seriously and he'd never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does,” added the fake Swiderski.

Homosexuality is a criminal offence in Iran and punishable in some cases by death. Also as per the same fake Gallup poll, 60 percent of rural whites said they respected that Ahmadinejad does not try to hide the fact that he’s Muslim. Fars News Agency replicated The Onion article without crediting the source. However, later, having realized their blunder, they seem to have removed the article from their website.

Meanwhile, Will Tracy, the editor of The Onion released a statement wise-cracking that Fars was The Onion's "Middle East bureau". This is what Will Tracy had to say: "The Onion freely shares content with Fars and commends the journalists at Iran's Finest News Source on their superb reportage."

The Onion even went so far as to joke below their fake report: ‘For more on this story: Please visit our Iranian subsidiary organization, Fars.’ But then it is not just Iran, which has fallen prey to The Onion weird sense of humor. In 2004, the Chinese state-run Beijing Evening News published the website's article that American Congress was threatening to walk out of Washington DC.

Another hilarious story currently posted on The Onion site is a report portraying President Ahmadinejad as glowing green and telling the U.N delegates he is the real weapon of mass destruction that Iran is building. Apparently, he told a stunned U.N General Assembly: “President Obama pledged yesterday to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, but in fact, the weapon in question has been standing before you this entire time.”

Of course, even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not spared by The Onion pranksters. In another spoof report, they inform Netanyahu as announcing on Friday that he is “pretty satisfied” with his trip to the U.S. to instigate World War III. Netanyahu is also reported as saying: “All in all, I think I accomplished my goal of pushing humanity toward the brink of complete and utter annihilation.”

Source: Sky News/The Onion

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