Kim Jong-Un Named The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive For 2012 [UPDATE] | The Onion - America's Finest News Source ...and the Chinese actually fell for it! Chinese paper falls for Onion 'sexiest man alive' spoof - Behind The Wall
I've been quite intrigued by the media reaction to this one. I have several friends who work for the People's Daily and for Xinhua. Those who can speak English sometimes read The Onion, and they're well aware that it's a satirical site. I haven't spoken to any of them this week, and I really must catch up with them. But my guess is that whoever put this article into the paper knew exactly what they were doing. I think there are two possibilities here. The first is that the journalists did it of their own accord, for a laugh. The second is that the Ministry of Propaganda, which controls the People's Daily and Xinhua, wanted it in there. While China is nominally an ally of the DPRK, one of the few things that unites everyone in the Chinese government is that they all hate the DPRK government. So I wouldn't be surprised if the Ministry of Propaganda wanted to do this just to annoy the DPRK while maintaining a level of deniability.
