The Onion is an American news satire organization. It features satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news as well as an entertainment newspaper and website known as The A.V. Club . It claims a national print circulation of 690,000 and says 61 percent of its web site readers are between 18 and 44 years old. Since 2007, the organization has been publishing satirical news videos online, as the "Onion News Network".
The Onion 's articles comment on current events, both real and imagined. It parodies traditional newspaper features, such as editorials, man-on-the-street interviews, and stock quotes, as well as traditional newspaper layout and AP-style editorial voice. Much of its humor depends on presenting everyday events as newsworthy items, and by playing on commonly used phrases, as in the headline, "Drugs Win Drug War."
A second part of the newspaper is a non-satirical entertainment section called The A.V. Club that features interviews and reviews of various newly released media, and other weekly features. The print edition also contains restaurant reviews and previews of upcoming live entertainment specific to cities where a print edition is published. The online incarnation of The A.V. Club has its own domain, includes its own regular features, A.V. Club blogs and reader forums, and presents itself as a separate entity from The Onion itself.
History
Two juniors at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson, founded The Onion (originally published in Madison, Wisconsin) in 1988; the following year, they sold it to Scott Dikkers and Peter Haise, for less than $20,000 ($16,000, according to the Washington Post ; a 2003 Business 2.0 article reported the figure was $19,000). Reportedly, it was Chris Johnson's uncle, Wm. Nels Johnson, who came up with the idea to name the paper The Onion. "People always ask questions about where the name The Onion came from," said former President Sean Mills in an interview with Wikinews , "and when I recently asked Tim Keck, who was one of the founders, he told me...literally that his uncle said he should call it The Onion when he saw him and Chris Johnson eating an onion sandwich. They had literally just cut up the onion and put it on bread." According to former editorial manager, Chet Clem, their food budget was so low when they started the paper that they were down to white bread and onions.
The Onion was at first a success in only a limited number of cities and towns, notably those with major universities (e.g. Madison, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago, Boulder). Originally the entire bottom two inches of the paper could be cut off for coupons to local Madison establishments, such as inexpensive student-centered eateries and Four Star Video Heaven.
The creation of its website in 1996 allowed it to receive national attention. In 2000, as the publication had broken through to the mass market, The Onion was approached by Comedy Central for a buyout that would broaden the scope and reach of The Onion 's brand of satire into other forms of media. In early 2001, the company relocated its offices to New York City. The paper continues to make occasional Madison references, placing odd stories in surrounding towns or running photographs of local landmarks to illustrate stories set elsewhere. In April 2007, The Onion launched 'The Onion News Network,' a web video sendup of 24 hour TV news.
The paper's founders went on to become publishers of other alternative weeklies: Keck of the Seattle weekly The Stranger and Johnson of Albuquerque Weekly Alibi .
In January 2009, Onion president Sean Mills—who was responsible for the Onion's turnaround and growth in New York City—suddenly left the company explaining that "the time has come for a new challenge."
In April 2009, The Onion was awarded a Peabody Award which noted that "the satirical tabloid's online send-up of 24-hour cable-TV news was hilarious, trenchant and not infrequently hard to distinguish from the real thing."
In July 2009, various news outlets began reporting rumors of an impending sale of The Onion to a large media company. A further rumor indicated that such a sale would be announced on Monday, July 20, 2009. The "sale" was ultimately revealed as fictional publisher emeritus T. Herman Zweibel stating he'd sold the publication to a Chinese company, resulting in a long series of Chinese-related articles and features throughout the Onion website and publications. On Wednesday, July 22, 2009, Onion editor Joe Randazzo clarified the issue on National Public Radio's All Things Considered as saying: "I'm sure there are many Chinese conglomerates out there that would love to buy The Onion ," he says. "We are, in fact, still a solvent independently owned American company." Recent layoffs, pay-cuts, hiring freezes and office closings were not discussed.
Distribution
The Onion' s printed edition is distributed free in Madison, Milwaukee, New York City, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver/Boulder, Austin and Washington, D.C. It is also sold in bookstores worldwide, including the United Kingdom, and is available by mail through paid subscription. From 2005 to 2009, Los Angeles and San Francisco editions were published. These editions were discontinued in May 2009 due to a lack of advertising revenue.
Regular features
Regular features of The Onion include:
- "STATshot", an illustrated statistical snapshot which parodies " USA Today Snapshots"
- The "Infograph" (a.k.a. "Infographic"), with a bulleted list of items on a theme.
- Point-Counterpoint
- Guest opinion pieces and regular columnists
- Bizarre horoscopes
- "The ONION in History": a front page produced in the look of newspapers of an earlier era, from the book "Our Dumb Century"
- "In the News" photograph and caption with no accompanying story (such as "Frederick's of Anchorage Debuts Crotchless Long Underwear", "National Association Advances Colored Person", and "Owls Are Assholes")
- "American Voices" (formerly called "What Do You Think?"), a mock vox populi survey on a topical current event. There are three respondents for each topic who seem to have been chosen intentionally to represent a diverse selection of ages, races, and socio-economic classes. Although their names and professions change daily, photos of the same six people are always used. One of them is often described as a systems analyst.
- An editorial cartoon drawn by "Kelly" (a fictional character; the cartoons are actually the work of Ward Sutton). The comic–the most controversial feature in The Onion –is a deadpan parody of conservative cartoons, as well as editorial cartoon conventions in general. Roughly half of the cartoons feature the Statue of Liberty, usually shedding a single tear.
The website was redesigned in 2005:
- All archives were returned to being free, and Onion Premium, a failed attempt at a paid-subscriber model section of the site, was discontinued.
- "What Do You Think?" became "American Voices," with the question updated every weekday, and only three responders for each question, instead of six
- "In the News" was retitled "From the Print Edition"
- The Onion began publishing web-only content on a daily basis, such as a daily fictional stock market analysis titled "Stock Watch" (one of which appears in the print edition every week), a web opinion poll titled "QuickPoll" (since discontinued), "National News Highlights" of three regional stories, the cover of The Onion Weekender (a parody of PARADE magazine ) and The Onion Magazine (a parody of The New York Times Magazine ), and The President's Weekly Radio Address.
- The nationally syndicated Onion Radio News , a brief audio clip read by anchor Doyle Redland, became a daily feature. In early 2006, Onion Radio News podcast was launched, and quickly shot to #1 on the iTunes list of top podcasts.
- A sports section was introduced, having archival material from old issues in addition to new articles (such as "Matt Leinart Wins Beauty Portion of 2006 NFL Draft") and rotating headlines such as "New York Rangers Honor Proud Madison Square Garden Tradition by Losing".
The Onion website is updated every day, most significantly (and historically before the move to daily updates) on Wednesday afternoons, and The Onion newspaper is distributed on Thursdays.
A genuine Personals service is also offered by the Website.
Reporters and editors
The current editor of The Onion is Joe Randazzo, and the writing staff comprises Joe Garden, Dan Guterman, Todd Hanson, John Harris, Chris Karwowski, Chad Nackers, Seth Reiss, Baratunde Thurston and Will Tracy. Past writers have included Mark Banker, Max Cannon, Amie Barrodale, Rich Dahm, Megan Ganz, Janet Ginsburg, Tim Harrod, David Javerbaum, Ben Kar
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