The Onion's deadpan satricial news-stories, musch-forwarded and chuckled over, have frequently been reported as fact by variou snews agencies, law-enforcement departments, and pressure groups.
[T]he Branch County sheriff's department in Coldwater, Michigan, which had been investigating telemarketing scams targeting the elderly, issued an urgent press release.
"In the course of this investigation, it was learned that this is going on throughout the United States, and some of these telemarketing programs are believed to be operated by al-Qaida," the release stated. "The CIA has announced that they acquired a videotape showing al-Qaida members making phone solicitations for vacation home rentals, long-distance telephone service, magazine subscriptions and other products."
