Radio host fooled by Onion's story on drones at Obama inauguration

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Staff at China's People's Daily aren't the only people who've mistaken an Onion punchline for the real thing. City Pages alerted readers to the Facebook page of a Minnesota radio host who confused a doctored image from a satirical Onion story about Barack Obama's inauguration for reality.

The Onion published its story, "Obama Begins Inauguration Festivities With Ceremonial Drone Flyover," on Jan. 21, along with a photoshopped image of drones flying over the National Mall. Andy Driscoll, host of KFAI's "TruthToTell" show in St. Paul, shared the photo on his Facebook page Tuesday and captioned it "Ugly."

"1984 is no longer fiction," wrote one commenter.

"Sad, but true - and been increasingly intrusive since 1984," Driscoll replied, later adding, "Never seen three in a cluster formation like that, but they're obviously scanning the crowd for potential trouble - all monitored by a site in Las Vegas."

After one commenter linked to The Onion's original story, writing "Luckily, this version of 1984 is still a ways off," Driscoll responded:

President Obama has been criticized for his persistent use of unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones, in the war on terror.

Driscoll's KFAI profile describes him as a "veteran broadcaster and public affairs specialist" who has run for local office three times.

[Via Yahoo!]