Iranian news agency duped by Onion

www.politico.com

No joke. Iran’s semi-official government news agency on Friday picked up a bogus poll story by The Onion that said a majority of rural white Americans would rather go to a baseball game with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than President Barack Obama.

“Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama” reads the article by Iran’s Fars news agency.

The Onion posted its satirical article Monday.

“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,” it reads, adding that 77 percent of rural white voters said they “would much rather go to a baseball game or have a beer with Ahmadinejad, a man who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and has had numerous political prisoners executed, than spend time with Obama.”

(Also on POLITICO: Politicians flocking to the Nats)

Onion editor Will Tracy released an equally satirical statement about Fars’ slip-up.

“The Iranian news agency, Fars, is a subsidiary of The Onion. They have acted as our Middle Eastern bureau since the mid 1980s, when the Onion’s publisher, T. Herman Zweibel, founded Fars with the government approval of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. The Onion freely shares content with Fars and commends the journalists at Iran’s Finest News Source on their superb reportage,” Tracy joked.

It’s not the first time The Onion has duped politicians. In February, Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), deleted a Facebook post in which he linked to an Onion article about Planned Parenthood that he did not realize was satirical.