I really, really thought that everyone in the world knew that The Onion was a spoof newspaper. I really did.
Apparently I was wrong. Reuters is reporting that The Beijing Evening News (one of Beijing’s most popular newspapers) was fooled by The Onion’s article: Congress Threatens to Leave Unless new Capitol is Built. Wow.
Articles on the subject can be found on Slashdot and the San Francisco Chronicle. I will say that I thought I had seen that article on some other reputible news source… maybe not. Who knows.
In other news, I ordered my digital camera. Sometime next week I’ll be receiving my Canon A40 — looks like a nice digital cam. Why not buy a film camera? Well, that’s pretty simple — if I don’t like the digital camera, or feel like I still want a film camera, I can sell the Digicam on Ebay for no less than what I paid for it (maybe more)… if I buy the film camera, I’ll certainly take a hit if I ever decide to sell it.
Two different NPR programs picked up the story, interviewing the editor. The CBC also picked it up. Funny, when you publish a government-owned paper in China, I\’d think you\’d acquire a realization that what was reported wasn\’t necessarily so.
Hilarious!!! Link, you have a streak of cynical all the way through you, doncha??!!
you just know the publishers were salivating over the apparent capitalist piggishness of the story. but, one of the drawbacks of being so repressed, is that you lose your grasp of irony — how *could* anyone take that seriously? ooh — and congrats on the camera.
Why, Shel, I don\’t know what you mean.