President Obama isn’t going to visit a mosque on Sept. 11, 2014. A political satire website posted an article saying he was, however.
The article, titled “Obama to Visit Mosque, Host Muslim Leaders on 9/11,” was published on the National Report, which posts fake news to rile up conservatives and Tea Party-types.
“White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest announced today that President Obama will be visiting a Washington D.C. area Mosque on the morning of September 11th as a goodwill gesture to Muslim Americans. The name and location of the Mosque are currently being withheld for security reasons,” it reads. “The President has long been criticised for being sympathetic towards Muslims and has even been accused of secretly being Muslim himself.”
The National Report doesn’t have a disclaimer, but it used to have one.
It used to say: “DISCLAIMER - National Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental . The views expressed by writers on this site are theirs alone and are not reflective of the fine journalistic and editorial integrity of National Report,” according to a website that saved it.
A few months ago, the publisher of the National Report issued a quasi-real editorial about satire in response to backlash against a fake article it published about an NYPD officer killing a baby. “
“Satire is not required to be humorous, nor was this particular post meant to be funny,” the article said, in attempting to give a reason as to why the website publishes satire.
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