OB Rag purchased by Fox News

OCEAN BEACH –Bankers representing News Corporation announced that its Fox News division had agreed to purchase The OB Rag, a local news website based in San Diego.

“With this acquisition,” News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch said in a prepared statement, “News Corp silences an increasingly important voice for social justice and expands its local coverage to boot.”

Terms of the purchase remain undisclosed, but a spokesperson for OB Rag publisher Frank Gormlie confirmed the price includes “heaps of News Corp. funny money” and “enough medicinal marijuana to eradicate glaucoma from the face of the earth.”

Sources close to the deal say Gormlie will relinquish control of The OB Rag’s content but will work for News Corporation’s corporate office, reporting to Murdoch directly in what a press release described as “an opposition-research function.”

News Corp.’s purchase of The OB Rag became effective on April 1, and that afternoon, KUSI News cameras spotted Gormlie browsing the inventory at a Land Rover dealership in Rancho Santa Fe.

Later, via email, Gormlie confirmed he was new-car shopping.

“Hey, Fords and Toyotas get you from point A to point B,” Gormlie said. “But they don’t get you there like a big ol’ pimp.”

Some Rag readers were shocked to learn their lefty local website is now the property of the world’s most despised right-wing media conglomerate.

“It seems like, when he was offered enough money, Frank put aside his most important principles,” said an unidentified man fishing on the OB Pier. “Sure, regular people do that all the time, but at least they justify it by having a baby or buying an expensive house.”

Others seemed less concerned about the acquisition.

“Maybe now that Gormlie is part of the system, he can bring it down from the inside, like me,” said Randy Alsobought, a peace advocate and lifelong Democrat who works for a defense contractor. “My plan is to do everything the system asks me to for years and years, the whole time secretly knowing I’m a better person than that.”

At least one member of The OB Rag’s inner circle seemed unsurprised by the sale of the website.

“Not many people realize it, but Frank’s always been aiming to cash out huge,” said Doug Porter, an original OB Rag staffer and long-time friend of Gormlie. “When we were printing in the 1970s, Frank was always saying how the hippie demographic represented a long, winding road to outsized riches.”

Porter would neither confirm nor deny reports that other OB Rag staffers will also receive significant compensation.

“Have you seen the part in The Social Network where Mark Zuckerberg rips off his best friend for millions of dollars?” Porter said. “Neither have I.”