The Onion Spoof Causes New York Times Mishap

The Onion, the comedy news organization, fooled the New York Times, which admitted that it accidentally used a fake Tiger Beat magazine cover with President Obama’s face on the front when it did a piece on the publication.

On Saturday, The Times admitted that it used a fake cover with the President on the front that was made up by The Onion when it did a montage of Tiger Beat magazine covers.

“A series of pictures last Sunday of covers of the magazine Tiger Beat,” the correction from the Times reads, “with an article about how the original teen-girl tabloid has remained virtually unchanged since its inception in 1965 erroneously included a parody cover, produced by the satiric newspaper The Onion, that featured a picture of President Obama.”

The photo was originally for an Onion story titled “Barack Obama ‘Tiger Beat’ Cover Clinches Slumber Party Vote,” which satirically documents his popularity among teens.

“Obama is expected to remain a solid favorite with the giggling-and-talking-until-4 a.m. voting bloc, as hunky war hero John McCain, his closest contender, is widely considered by the slumber party demographic to be a gross dork,” the story reads.

The Onion has been falsely reported on before. The Beijing Evening News did a story based on a fake Onion report about the U.S. Congress threatening to leave unless they get a new Capitol building with a retractable dome.