William Atkins
Monday, 07 September 2009 20:16
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 3
After years of conspiracy theories trying to convince people that the U.S. government faked the Moon landings, two Bangladeshi newspapers confirm indirectly that, indeed, the United States did land on the Moon in July 1969.
The two People's Republic of Bangladesh newspapers—the
Daily Manab Zamin and the
New Nation—both ran (supposedly true) articles stating that former U.S. Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong recanted his story about his Apollo 11 Moon landing, saying it was all faked by the U.S. government.
However, the original source of the article that ran in these two Bangladeshi newspapers was
The Onion, a news agency that runs fake, untrue articles on the Internet about real historic and current events.
It is obvious when going to the website of the “fake news” organization
The Onion that it only runs false, satirical, parody news headings and stories.
For instance, several of its current headlines are “
Haiti Makes Bid For 2216 Olympics,” “
Nation's Unemployment Outlook Improves Drastically After Fifth Beer,” and “
Ominous Music Heard Throughout U.S. Sends Nation Into Panic.”
Even Wikipedia has a comprehensive report on the tabloid
The Onion stating that
"The Onion is an American "fake news" organization. It features satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news as well as an entertainment newspaper and website known as The A.V. Club. It claims a national print circulation of 690,000 and says 61 percent of its web site readers are between 18 and 44 years old."
So, it is quite easy to verify the type of articles run by
The Onion.
However, the two newspapers in Bangladesh did not even go to the website to check the source. They both ran the article sight unseen.
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