It is a quirk of history that "America's Finest News Source" has yet to win America's finest journalism prize. Somehow in 2011, the satirical website the Onion is still without the Pulitzer it so richly deserves. A pressure group has set out to right this ancient wrong. Americans for Fairness in Awarding Journalism Prizes. A statement on the group's website said: "It's time for the Pulitzer Board to stop the bias, stop the ignorance, and stop the neglect."

The group have enlisted A-list supporters in their quest for the Onion to get its deserved Pulitzer. Tom Hanks today offered his backing for the campaign to give the Onion a Pulitzer prize. Here is his statement in full:

"As an artist with a taste for excellence I find it odd - truly odd - that the Onion has yet to be honoured by whoever it is that awards the prize. In fact it makes me angry. I feel an intense physical malice towards whoever is in this mysterious cabal of power-brokers and so-called taste makers who gather annually in what must be some all-night drunken bacchanalia slash piñata party, the result of which is the awarding of the prized Pulitzer. If our Onion does not receive this year's P2, I will search you down - each and every one of you who is responsible for this great injustice. The Pulitzer Prize committee should be ashamed of making me feel this way. I have spoken. Thank you."

The Onion has a long, noble history of scoops. Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the Onion scooped its rivals by gaining an interview with God Himself, who angrily clarified his do not kill rule. In 2010, the Onion also revealed that Justin Bieber was in a fact 51-year-old sex offender called Michael Cote.

To add your name to the hundreds who want to right this wrong, you can sign the petition here.