In 1988 two juniors at the University of Wisconsin in Madison started a small parody tabloid newspaper called The Onion. In 1996 TheOnion.com was started and by 2000 The Onion had achieved national success, eventually being purchased by Comedy Central in 2000. The Onion's deadpan delivery of fake news articles has been quite convincing, enough so that other news organizations sometimes mistake them for real, and report on them. Some examples include...
In 1998, Fred Phelps posted the Onion article "'98 Homosexual-Recruitment Drive Nearing Goal" on his "God Hates Fags" website as "proof" that gay people were indeed actively trying to "recruit" others.
- On June 7, 2002, Reuters reported that the Beijing Evening News republished, in the international news page of its June 3 edition, translated portions of "Congress Threatens To Leave D.C. Unless New Capitol Is Built" with a retractable dome. The Evening News initially stood by the story, demanding proof of its falsehood. It later retracted the article, responding that "some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them with the aim of making money."
- In late March 2004, Deborah Norville of MSNBC presented as genuine an article titled "Study: 58 Percent Of U.S. Exercise Televised".
- In 2006, the Danish television station TV 2 posted a story on the gossip section of its website that took seriously the Onion article titled "Sean Penn Demands To Know What Asshole Took [email protected]".
- An article on Harry Potter inciting kids to practice witchcraft was believed by many to be real and was forwarded by many concerned Christians. Columnist Ellen Makkai and others who believe the Harry Potter books "recruit" children to Satanism have also been taken in by the article, using quotes from it as "evidence" for their claims.
- In September 2009, two Bangladeshi newspapers, Daily Manab Zamin and New Nation, published stories translated from The Onion claiming Neil Armstrong had held a news conference claiming the moon landing was an elaborate hoax. Neither realized The Onion was not a genuine news site. Both of the newspapers apologized to their readers for not checking the story.
- In October 2009, the Russian news site Russia.ru repackaged clips from the Onion video piece "New Anti-Smoking Ad Warns Teens 'It's Gay to Smoke'" as legitimate news.
The quality of The Onion's delivery was convincing enough that the republishing of fake news became real news. So, be careful what you read, otherwise you will believe that the U.S. has deported Lou Dobbs for being an illegal alien.
-Professor Walter
The Harry Potter fiasco spread to Reader's Digest. A "concerned" reader complained about featuring JK Rowling on the cover because Rowling was "converting" children to "satanism" through her books. When the magazine removed the cited source from the letter, the writer wrote BACK demanding that the entire letter be printed, because she read about it on theonion.com so her claims MUST be legitimate. Reader's Digest had made an attempt to make the woman appear less of an idiot lunatic, but she insisted on it being shown to the world.
Posted by: The Wife | 11/16/2009 at 07:52 AM