[goldstategop]

I wonder if the Chinese caught onto the joke. ;-)

[piasa]

But a little checking showed that this story, too, was cribbed: It was a direct translation of a front-page article from Sunday's Washington Post.

Does this mean that the Chinese paper will be receiving a note from the Washington Post's lawyers?

Maybe the next Onion headline will be:

Red China Joins Jim Robinson's FreeRepublic in Defense Against L.A. Times and Washington Post Lawsuit

[TomGuy]

Goes to prove a point I've made before on how reporters "authenticate" their reporting:

Reporter for media A writes something conjectural with a lot of "mays, mights, coulds, shoulds, woulds, ifs, etc."
Reporter for media B writes something and references reporter for media A as the source.
Reporter for media C writes something and validates the source as "in published reports."

Bingo! Media has "authenticated" reporting without even getting up from their desks to validate any part of it. Then the nightly TV news picks up the story and runs with it too.

Considering some of the recent "real" headlines, thought, it can be easy to get confused with Onion's satire. Some days truth is stranger than fiction. How many headlines have we read recently and said, "This has to be a joke" or "Surely, this can't be true" only to find out it is no joke and it is true.

[PJ-Comix]

Now looky heah! Is Robert Higgings one of the American stringers for the Beijing Evening News? Remember Robert Higgins? He was the one talking live on the air to Peter Jennings and feeding him info about the OJ Bronco Chase.

"Ah see OJ...and he looks scared!"

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

But he adamantly ruled out a correction and grew slightly obstreperous when pressed to comment on the article's lack of truth.

At some time in the past the editor must have worked for Dan Rather.

[KS Flyover]

Here's the Onion article:

[Texaggie79]

ping

[tlrugit]

The Onion, it seems, has been recruited as an organ in the Department of Truth.

[steve-b]

"Man Blames Hangover on Everything But How Much He Drank"

That was satire? I thought it was a story about the latest lawsuit.

[Lazamataz]

It never would have made news in China if it had been posted on Free Republic first.

That's because -- since it was satire -- Admin Moderator would have deleted it.

[Steve0113]

ping for a funny one.

[CaptRon]

I'll bet you they got it here. It was posted here only a couple of days ago.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Chicoms looked in on us, particularly after the 2000 election.

The format of articles here is pretty generic and I know that I sometimes don't scrutinize the source field that closely.

[CDHart]

The tragic part is that the Chinese apparently seemed to think that our Senate would actually do something that foolish. It doesn't speak well for the reputation of our congresscritters.

Carolyn