Iran's Fars News Plagiarizes An Onion Report Claiming Whites Prefer Mahmoud To Barack

Iranian media keeps using The Onion as a source of news information with no clue that it's simply satire.

Tehran-based 24 hour English Language PressTV used an Onion video claiming that Facebook is a CIA front, and that Mark Zuckerberg is a CIA operative, as a source for their own report. The latest bit of stupidity has the state run Fars News Agency plagiarizing, no less, an Onion piece that said rural white Americans prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama. It was edited (they left out the bit about Mahmoud being a holocaust denier who executes political prisoners), but the bulk of the original Onion piece was published  without giving credit to the source. They even used the same headline  "Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama" which they posted along with a link to their version of the article on their Twitter account.

The N.Y. Times 'The Lede' said:

Although the dateline for the news brief says that the reporting was done in Tehran by Fars, the first sentence is identical to the earlier Onion parody:

“According to the results of a Gallup poll released Monday, the overwhelming majority of rural white Americans said they would rather vote for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than U.S. president Barack Obama.”

The second sentence of the Fars report, however, changed “have a beer with Ahmadinejad,” to “have a drink with Ahmadinejad,”[snip]

The final two sentences of the original Onion report, quoting a fictional voter in West Virginia who prefers Iran’s president, were published unchanged by Fars:

“He takes national defense seriously, and he’d never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does.” According to the same Gallup poll, 60 percent of rural whites said they at least respected that Ahmadinejad doesn’t try to hide the fact that he’s Muslim.

The only other difference between the two versions of the fake report is that The Onion used a more flattering photograph of Mr. Ahmadinejad, showing him with a broad smile.

It was the third most "important" story on the homepage until Fars finally removed it  after the NY Times contacted the Iranian Mission to the  UN.

It was also published on Hayat and Mehr news site. So now the Iranian people think the vast majority of whites would prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama. You have to love the narcissism and ego of some of our world leaders, including Obama. But no, Mahmoud, we don't prefer you to Obama.