COMMENTARY | Satire newspaper The Onion sent a series of tweets about Congress taking a group of schoolchildren hostage. According to The New York Times, one of the tweets sent was “BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building.”
The paper often tweets fake news that are taken as jokes, and not meant to be serious, but this series of messages left many questioning whether a real attack had taken place in Washington, D.C.
While The Onion continued to send the fake news over Twitter, adding to the mayhem and even stating that 12 schoolchildren were being held by armed congressmen while the Capitol building was evacuated, the police are not laughing. In fact, they are rather angry.
Taken out of context, these messages could easily be construed as real, not something made up by a group of satire writers that has possibly gone a little too far. The paper linked to its story, starring House Speaker John Boehner, R.-Ohio, as the spokesman for a wayward bipartisan group demanding a ransom in exchange for not killing the group of schoolchildren.
In a photo that accompanies the story , Boehner is shown holding a gun to a schoolgirl’s head.
The paper is attempting to make a joke out of the ignorance in our country today, but this time the joke has failed. The Capitol police took the threats seriously, and though there can be a fine line between a good laugh, a silly prank and bad taste, I think the line here was a pretty obvious one.
It’s unfortunate, but in times where terrorist threats are all too often real, this joke is just not funny. The authorities in the White House have to take these seriously, and how many thousands of dollars are being thrown away investigating a joke? Is it really all just good old-fashioned fun?
The Onion is supposed to be making fun of irresponsible journalism; though most of us know it is not real, it seems rather irresponsible to send out tweets with this type of message. Even though the police know it is not real, they are still continuing to investigate, and along with that, more tax dollars are being tossed out the window.
Sorry, just not finding anything funny about this joke. In fact, it rather stinks.