RAMBLINGS - The Hong Kong Brother

Buying the Onion

The following article is surely being censored in China right now (ha ha). It is an ACTUAL report from Reuters.

Beijing newspaper falls for Onion's spoof
REUTERS in Beijing

Beijing's most popular newspaper has unwittingly republished a bogus story about U.S. Congress' threats to skip town for Memphis or Charlotte unless Washington builds them a new Capitol building with a retractable dome.

The source? America's celebrated spoof tabloid, the Onion.

The Beijing Evening News, which claims a circulation of 1.25 million, translated portions of the Onion's tall tale word-for-word in the international news page of its June 3 edition.

The reprinted version of the May 29 article, which parodies Congress as a Major League Baseball squad, also copied the Onion's would-be blueprint for a new legislative home that resembles a ballpark.

"Don't get us wrong: We love the drafty old building," the Onion jestingly quoted House Speaker Dennis Hastert saying."But the hard reality is, it's no longer suitable for a world-class legislative branch. The sight lines are bad, there aren't enough concession stands or bathrooms, and the parking is miserable."

The spoof from the brazen entertainment tabloid, which dubs itself "America's finest news source," apparently took in the Evening News.

''The story was written by one of our freelance writers,'' an editor at the Evening News told Reuters on Friday. ''His stuff has been pretty much reliable before.''

The editor said he had received other calls from readers about the article. ''They were also suspicious of the contents.''

Told the story came from the Onion and was not true, the editor said, ''We would first have to check that out. If it's indeed fake, I'm sure there will be some form of correction.''

I am copying the article here from Reuters with no permission whatsoever, but I'm telling you where it came from out of some weird (and baseless) sense that "it's cool to copy if I tell you where it came from"...

This article was first posted: 7 June 2002

Here are some of the things I think about:

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*The Wonders of English*	*Solo And The City*
*Writing 2004 -- #1: "The Third Eye"*	*The Politics Of Masking*
*Writing 2004 -- #2: "The Time Machine"*	*Tiananmen Mothers*
*Everything's Fake In China!!*	*What's Up, Doc?*
*BEN's TEAM -- 2004*

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