Iranian news site mistakenly publishes joke article - WDAM-TV 7-News, Weather, Sports-Hattiesburg, MS

Rural whites prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama? Iranian news site gets fooled

An Iranian news site republished a satirical article that said 77 percent of rural white Americans would rather have a beer with Ahmadinejad than Obama as factual. (Source: Wikimedia/Daniella Zalcman) An Iranian news site republished a satirical article that said 77 percent of rural white Americans would rather have a beer with Ahmadinejad than Obama as factual. (Source: Wikimedia/Daniella Zalcman)

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(RNN) - The Iranian FARS News Agency published an article Friday morning titled: "Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad."

The problem was the article was stolen from The Onion, a satirical news site.

In the original article by The Onion, which dubs itself "America's Finest News Source," it was "reported" a Gallup Poll showed 77 percent of rural white Americans would prefer Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over President Barack Obama.

It also joked that rural white Americans would rather go to a baseball game or have a drink with Ahmadinejad than with Obama. "Sources" praised the Iranian leader for not hiding the fact he's Muslim, like Obama does.

FARS took the article down after the mistake went viral, but not before The Onion was able to take a screenshot of the page.

Taking it further, The Onion now refers to FARS as their "Iranian subsidiary organization."

This is not the first time the mock news group has fooled somebody. Most recently, Mashable reported ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith went on a Twitter rant after reading an article titled, "Stephen A. Smith Thinking Son Is Finally Ready For The Sex Argument."

"I thought I'd heard enough despicable lies about myself," Smith tweeted. "Now there's some article out that I have a 9-yr-old son and I'm going to have a conversation with him about sex. Some ppl are beyond despicable."

After realizing it was a joke, Smith tweeted, "Haaaaaa. They got me. I didn't know it was on Satire! Got it. Peeps got jokes. It's cool!"

An even bigger mistake happened last year, when U.S. Rep. John Fleming, R-LA, a fierce opponent of abortion rights, posted on his Facebook page an Onion article titled, "Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex" he thought was real.

"More on Planned Parenthood. Abortion by the wholesale," Fleming commented.

The article poked fun at abortion opponents' demonization of Planned Parenthood by saying the organization is building a 900,000-square-foot facility that would help "terminate unborn lives with an efficiency never before thought possible."

Before Fleming removed the post, a commenter replied, "The Onion is satire. How exactly did you get elected?"

Literally Unbelievable is a Tumblr page dedicated to screenshots of people who took parody for reality.

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