Iran Follow-Up: Fars News Apologises for Running Story from The Onion
Sunday, September 30, 2012 at 12:06
The original Fars English story, copied directly from The Onion
See also Iran Feature: Fars News and The Onion Agree --- "Rural American Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama"
On Friday, we featured the story of how Iranian media, including Fars News' English-language site, were headlining, "Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama". The small problem with the breaking news? It was taken from the satirical on-line "newspaper", The Onion.
Today, Fars English's Editor-in-Chief has apologised:
Unfortunately an incorrect item was released on our website on Friday which included a fake opinion poll on popularity rate of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and US President Barack Obama. The news item was extracted from the Satirical Magazine, The Onion, by mistake and it was taken down from our outlook in less two hours.
It is not quite a full retraction, however. The Editor continues, "Although it does not justify our mistake, we do believe that if a free opinion poll is conducted in the US, a majority of Americans would prefer anyone outside the US political system to President Barack Obama and American statesmen."
;)