The Washington Post has a strict mandate to print the truth — unless it shows up in the Onion.

The Post plans to make itself a tidy, if odiferous, wad of cash by printing and selling advertising for America’s best-known satirical newspaper, the Onion, The Post reported in its Thursday edition. (Those of you, who equate newspapers with dinosaurs, take care — the article by Post business reporter and uber-blogger Frank Ahrens first showed up on the Web on Wednesday.)

More from the Post: “Washington will be The Onion’s 10th city for paper distribution. The Onion, self-described as ‘America’s Finest News Source,’ claims a national print circulation of 599,000. It says 67 percent of its Web site viewers are between 18 and 44 years old.

“‘We believe that The Onion will be very well-received among young Washingtonians, and this is a very attractive opportunity for us to provide our advertisers with a new and unique way to reach that attractive young audience,’ said Christopher Ma, Post Co. vice president in charge of business development.’”

As many Washingtonians (or, in my case, former Washingtonians) will tell you, Foggy Bottom folks do like the Onion; they’ve been reading it online for years.