The Onion
The Onion is a parody newspaper and website, originally published in Madison, Wisconsin (and now in New York, Chicago, and Boulder, Colorado).
The Onion was founded in 1988 by Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson, who were then juniors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but they sold it to colleagues the next year. As of 2004, Keck is publisher of the alternative Seattle weekly The Stranger, and Johnson publishes Albuquerque's Weekly Alibi. The Onion was primarily a regional (Midwestern) success until it began its website in 1996. The staff of the Onion have produced numerous books, including Our Dumb Century and Dispatches from the Tenth Circle.
The Onion 's fictional editor is "T. Herman Zweibel," who has "held the position since 1901" and is rather insane. The Onion 's slogan is "America's Finest News Source". The real editor is currently Carol Kolb. Other writers have included Rich Dahm, Scott Dikkers, Todd Hanson, Tim Harrod, John Krewson, David Javerbaum, Mike Loew, Robert Siegel, and Maria Schneider.
The articles comment both on current events and imagined stories (example headline: "All Americans Issued Life Jacket for Some Reason"). The paper often reports on extremely minor events in an overly sensationalistic manner ("Area Man Confounded by Buffet Procedure") parodying traditional newspaper features and styles. Obsession with fame and celebrity are frequently satirized. Regular features are an illustrated "statshot" box (parodying USA Today), Point / Counterpoints, random and bizarre "editorials," cynical horoscopes, an "In the News" photograph and caption, and a "person on the street" feature that always surveys the same six people (although the names and professions change every week - aside from there always being one "systems analyst" among them).
Just after the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, when the future President remained undetermined, the Onion published a story titled "Bush or Gore: 'A New Era Dawns'" which parodied the similarities between the two politicians. The noteworthiness of this story was largely a matter of luck: the paper went to press election night, before the contested election results which led to Bush v. Gore. As the recount process unfolded, the Onion published a satirical issue reporting chaos in America, where Serbia sent peacekeepers to the U.S. to introduce democracy and protect their interests in the region, and Bill Clinton declared himself dictator for life.
The Onion 's coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks less than two weeks following the attacks was one of the earliest satirical reactions to those attacks, and was considered for a Pulitzer Prize.
On June 7, 2002, Reuters reported that the Beijing Evening News republished, in the international news page of its June 3 edition, translated portions of a story from The Onion (they were apparently unaware of The Onion 's satirical nature). The story discusses the U.S. Congress's threats to leave Washington for Memphis, Tennessee or Charlotte, North Carolina unless Washington, DC built them a new Capitol building with a retractable dome. The article is a parody of U.S. sports franchises' threats to leave their home city unless new stadiums are built for them. The Evening News is Beijing's most popular newspaper, claiming a circulation of 1.25 million.
In late March 2004, Deborah Norville of MSNBC presented as genuine an Onion article claiming that 58 percent of all exercise done in the United States is done on television.
Columnist Ellen Makkai and others who believe the Harry Potter books recruit children to Satanism have also been taken in by the Onion's satire, using quotes from an Onion article as evidence for their claims. .
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