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27 August 2013

The Independent falls for the Onion’s Miley Cyrus spoof

Quotes it straight. Oh dear.

By Media Mole

The Independent seems to have mistaken The Onion for a genuine news website. The world’s most widely known satire outlet, (whose other top stories right now are “Goldman Sachs Announces They’re Blowing Up A Nursing Home And There’s Nothing Anyone Can Do About It” and “Person Sitting In Parked Car At 2:00 A.M. Probably Upstanding Member Of Community“) was quoted in an Independent Voices piece on Miley Cyrus, quite, quite straight:

(via @flashboy)

Once Twitter noticed, the Indy replaced it with the awkwardly constructed:

A piece in The Onion even joked why CNN put Miley as their top story:

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“I could have argued that Miley Cyrus’ performance merited the top spot on our website because it was significant in terms of what’s happening in the world of pop culture…But who the f**k are we kidding?”

Rather embarrasingly, the Independent has form in mocking other news outlets for falling for The Onion. Just look at this piece from November 2012, which begins:

In possibly the most hilarious example of Communist-autocratic self-delusion yet to come from modern China, the online version of the Chinese Communist Party’s official news paper has fallen for a massive, giant, unspeakably hilarious send-up in satirical magazine The Onion.

There but for the grace of God go all of us.

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