Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/11/29/the-onion-has-exclusive-inform.html
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This is some weird new breakthrough in meta-satire.
They do already have a weird habit of writing fake news stories that years later come true.
It’s not real news, though. It’s still The Onion.
now i’m confused if this is actually real
“readers can dispel any notion that this journalistic enterprise was rushed to publication. Simply put, The Onion is willing to stake its nearly 252-year history of sterling, unbiased reportage upon the verity of these claims.”
shitty if its real, and shitty if its trying to be funny
I will refer you to this:
⊥rump tweet decrying The Onion as #FakeNews in
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Just in case this is flying over anyone’s head… https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-woman-approached-the-post-with-dramatic--and-false--tale-about-roy-moore-sje-appears-to-be-part-of-undercover-sting-operation/2017/11/27/0c2e335a-cfb6-11e7-9d3a-bcbe2af58c3a_story.html?utm_term=.93f91521d24a
Well played, Onion, well played. half-hearted golf clap commences
I think this particular story is actually an example of how the mainstream media actually does things right rather than how it has declined. The fake story didn’t fool the investigative journalists at The Washington Post because reputable newspapers usually have more rigorous standards for fact-checking than The Onion. That’s the joke.
that you or anyone even needs to explain this screams TROLLING to me.
… something about when parody becomes indistinguishable from reality…
or that a fully transparent troll attempt has a real possibility of fooling the highest office in the land…
I smell a Pulitzer!!!
If one hasn’t read the Washington Post story, this would be very confusing - because it is, almost, a real story. The only fake part is the idea that the mainstream media (or even a parody of it) would be as credulous as the right-wing media thinks they are (and, in a case of projection, are themselves).
Reality is approaching the Poe’s law event horizon.
All they’re missing is @wint making a comment on the situation in a wholly inappropriate way on Twitter.
It’s neither but I can see how the joke could be lost if you haven’t been on top of the past few day’s worth of bullshit.
The tl;dr is that a woman approached WaPo to say that Roy Moore impregnated her when she was 15. WaPo didn’t run the story because too many things didn’t hold up to scrutiny.
It was then discovered the woman was working for a conservative organization that is known for planting fake news stories specifically to discredit media outlets.
So the joke here is that The Onion, an unabashed satire and “fake news” site, takes this story and runs with it.
This should be a pretty obvious signal that it’s a joke, given that The Onion is a satire newspaper.
Aha thanks all, got it. Should’ve figured there would be a little more to this (obviously didn’t hear about the post story), but hell, at this point the onion breaking a true story seems plausible to me. I need to just stop keeping up with news all together LOL.
I’m sorry. I’ll put my shoes back on.
This is definitely a whole other level of satire. Perhaps too clever and subtle that the actual joke will go over some people’s heads. Also that reality vs satire is virtually indistinguishable really says something about our current state of affairs