Iran news agency picks up "Onion" story, tells Iranians rural Americans prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama

CBS News/AP

LONDON An Iranian news editor may be lamenting his or her own fact-checking practices this Friday.

The English-language website of the Fars news agency appears to have been duped by a spoof story by "The Onion", which claimed that a recent poll had found an "overwhelming majority of rural white Americans" would rather vote for Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than President Obama.

The story only appeared on the English site of Fars - which, like all other Iranian news organizations, is controlled strictly by the Islamic cleric-led government. By Friday afternoon, the story was apparently pulled down and attempts to access it generated an error message.

It is possible that, due to the tight controls on the internet and news organizations in Iran (and the fact that the story has not yet appeared on the native Farsi language site) that most Iranians will never see the ill-conceived story by Fars.

Friday is the holy day in the Muslim world, so it is also possible that Fars' normal editor had the day off and a more junior member of staff made the apparent error.

If the editor in question is still working, it's worth noting, to their credit, that they appear not to have picked up a story on The Onion a couple days earlier, showing a green-glowing Ahmadinejad proclaiming to the United Nations that he was, himself, a nuclear weapon.

[quincytodd]

Although I do not speak for the majority of "rural-white" Americans, I for one do prefer Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to that butcher Barack Obama who keeps on slaughtering people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen with those ungodly drones and Apache helicoptors day after day! The more the right-wing news media lambasts this man(Mahmoud Ahmedinejad), the more I respect him.

[crisjcesar]

Why does terrorist Israel posses nuclear weapons and kill people while under false passports and no one gives a rats ass. Some idiots are saying Israel should nuke Iran. How is that different than Iran nuking Israel? People got their heads up their ass. Screw you all. Ignorant, pop culture stick sucking sheep. I am one of the smart ones that will take all your money. will sell you sex on tv, and your kids will pay for my kids college for generations to come. Eat it losers. Niki Minaj has it right. She is a dirty hoe, but she has it right. When she said in one of her "songs" that people are lazy and that she supports Romney she was saying what she really thinks, but when they came to ask she said she was joking. You know why? because you are all idiots that want to hear lies rather than the truth and will waste your kids education money on meaningless things. I will too sell you what you want and my bank account is open. You sheep will always be sheep.

[Bush-cheney-R-Terrorists]

Even after they caught their error and tried to apolgize, they spent most of that retraction outlining how other media outlets have made mistakes too! And they never apologized for plagarizing the article word for word, without any attribution at all! Iranians are really nice people, but they need to lose the mullahs and islamic government. It just continues to embarrass those good people. We are going to have to level most of their military in the next few weeks, but it won't be personal. It's business.

[aintfakin]

this cracks me up
The rural white Americans may not like Amadinawhatever but they sound just like him
when they are calling Obama a Kenyan muslim communist

[Repubs_R_Fiscal_Liberals]

GOODOLEBOY671

Do you realize that using the term,"War monger" makes you sound like a stupid Liberal?

-------------

Do you realize that supporting endless pre-emptive attacks in the Middle East makes you a fiscal liberal?

Heck - North Korea, one of Bush's "Axis of Evil" has threatened the US, has nukes, and we've not done a thing???

Why not? (hint: it's not near the criminal state of Israel)

.

[msohio1]

Again---these low information voters (if they are voters) just don't have a clue as to who foreign leaders are, nor where these countries are located. I have no respect for the people asking them the questions, because these people are ill-informed and being taken advantage of.

[jaykay3141]

Heck, another satirical site (WeeklyWorldNews.com) that's published stories like "Obama's face to appear on $1 bill" and "Romney leads by 22 pts". The right-wing trolls came out by the thousands to spew their hate without ever asking if the stories were true. Faux Noise and the Republican machine have them so totally conditioned that any story with the president's name in it becomes a giant "ON" switch for their paranoid fantasies. If the far right can insist that every voter should have a valid ID maybe the rest of us should insist that they have a valid IQ.

[Think3Times]

It looks like a lot of people commenting here have no idea what The Onion is.
I've been reading it for many years, I find it very entertaining.

So Imadeliverjihad thinks it's serious? Yea I've met a few in my time that read The Onion and came running in shouting OMG LOOK AT THIS!!!

That makes me laugh even harder.

[jaykay3141]

They don't need to know what the Onion is. They have Fox.

[MIO42]

Ahmadinejad

Most Americans think that name is a Topping for layer Cake

Sounds like I want to eat some



Actually a recipe for accolypse

[WakaFunnyBunnyLaka]

<--- Rural White American here. Yes, I support Ahmadinejad. I hate war-monger US and I'm a Christian. Well, if the ignorance continues for much longer, I'll convert to Islam.

[burtwoody]

Iranians are really funny people! Don't ya just love em?