Talk:The Onion

Why is this part of wikiproject wisconsin? ReverendG 23:07, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

From the article: "The Onion was ... originally published in Madison, Wisconsin. ... [S]uccess was limited to the Madison and Milwaukee areas until it began its website in 1996." -- Tmhand 15:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Shinn

I agree that the Shinn section should be added. It was seriously awesome, and probably the most earnest Onion-taken-seriously event ever (in that the guy defended himself three times before he acknowledged, backhandedly, that the Onion article wasn't real).

This should be re-added

"*Peter Shinn of Monthly March For Life [1], a pro-life blog, wrote a response in 2006 to an Onion article published in 1999, I'm Totally Psyched About This Abortion! [2] The Onion article (written by a fictional "Caroline Weber") satirizes the notion that any woman would enjoy the painful abortion process. After Peter Shinn received a deluge of comments pointing out that The Onion is satire and "Caroline Weber" is fictitious, he wrote several responses in defense of his original post, [3] and [4]. He has since hidden the thousands of comments made on his blog,[5] but they can still be found via direct link on some weblogs.[6] Additionally, an unafilliated mirror of the blog has been set up to allow new comments to be posted [7]"

This was deleted, because it wasn't published anywhere. However, it is a famous event that tons of very big blogs (like DailyKos) all linked to and discussed, so it was, in a sense, published. It should be re-added. 68.34.19.64 04:12, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

taken seriously

unless I understand this wrong, "An article from The Onion appeared on the 2005 Advanced Placement English Language and Composition test, in which students were asked to write an essay analyzing its use of satire. [3]" that does not sound like it is being mistaken for real news, as all the other in that catagory but looked at as analysis of satire, maybe it should be moved somewhere else in the article.JohnRussell 15:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

"Influences" Dr.Who section, delete?

There is a small entry in the section with the header "Influences" that mentions a spoof of The Onion done by "Doctor Who Magazine." I believe needs to be deleted, for a couple of reasons.

First, it seems wrong to label something an influence if it was influenced BY the Onion, rather than the other way around. A more appropriate heading would be something like "references to the Onion in popular culture" or something else. "Influences" should be reserved for things that had an influence ON the The Onion, such as that National Lampoon book which pre-dates The Onion, but is a very similar mock-newspaprer.

Secondly, how many people read "Doctor Who Magazine"? It doesn't seem to have enough of a readership to warrant this mention on the page for The Onion. Hell, Mad Magazine ran a very good parody of the Onion in one of their issues, and that has a much bigger readership (and at least non-readers of Mad know what it is and have heard of it).

Not everything that has referenced The Onion deserves a place in this section, and it is not clear if "Doctor Who Magazine" was actually referencing the Onion or if it was merely ripping off the style of the Onion without implicitly acknowledging it.

Here is what the "influences" sections says, jut for the record:

The Panini TV tie-in, Doctor Who Magazine recently ran a series of spoof news reports called The Space Time Telegraph in the style of The Onion. These pages always had the same picture of a devastated woman being comforted, but with different news headlines.

POV

Isn't it POV to state that the Onion story was "clever"? Susan Mason

Yes it is, and leave it the hell alone. :)-'Vert

It seems discussing POV sets off some kind of intruder alarm for User:Zoe. I see what you mean... Susan Mason

Eh? I didn't contribute anything to this article or this discussion until you brought my name up. -- Zoe

On this ocassion I agree with SM - I'm taking out the word "clever". The article loses nothing without it (there's a link there anyway, so people can decide if it's clever for themselves; I don't think it is, particularly). --Camembert

---

The noteworthiness of this story was largely a matter of luck: the paper went to press election night, at a time when the uncertainty was not yet noteworthy.

Can someone cut this down to just one "noteworthy"?? -- Sam

---

There was another Onion story re-published as legitimate news--the one about the Chinese woman who had to choose which of her twins to keep. Possibly not noteworthy. I don't remember which paper republished it. Koyaanis Qatsi 12:44, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)~

It wasn't one of her twins. The story was that she gave birth to seven babies and had to choose one. The rest, according to the Onion article, "would be thrown off a mountaintop." Mike H 17:19, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)

---

None of these links to Onion articles stay current, unfortunately - they don't keep articles posted in their online archives indefinitely, it seems. --Xinoph 01:26, May 8, 2004 (UTC)

I added links to Archive.org's versions of the linked articles so anyone can see them. If this violates The Onion's copyright, they can be removed. --Dinojerm 20:54, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Slogan

The Onion 's slogan is "America's Finest News Source" — perhaps a parody of the New York Timess motto, "All the News That's Fit to Print." I don't understand the second part of this- the two slogans seem completely different to me (apart from mentioning news, but that's hardly distinctive for a newspaper). Has anyone suggested a connection (other than here)? Markalexander100 03:08, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't think that there's supposed to be a connection between the two. If you read "Our Dumb Century" or pick up a copy of the actual newspaper version of The Onion, you'll find that their motto (are mottos and slogans the same thing?) is "Tu Stultus Es," Latin for...well, I'll let you figure it out. --Joe

A long time ago, they used to use the slogan Number One In News. Not sure why they switched. ~ ~ Reaverdrop 07:22, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Authors?

On 16:38, 28 Apr 2004 the following Onion authors were added: Other writers have included Rich Dahm, Scott Dikkers, Todd Hanson, Tim Harrod, John Krewson, David Javerbaum, Mike Loew, Robert Siegel, and Maria Schneider.

Does anyone have a citation for this?

-Rich Dahm, Todd Hanson, Tim Harrod, Mike Loew, Rober Siegel,Maria Schneider, and John Krewson are all listed on the title page of "The Onion: Ad Nauseum Volume 14" (Three Rivers Press, NY, 2003.) A google search for "Scott Dikkers Onion" or "David Javerbaum Onion" turns up numerous citations for each, including this one for Dikkers and this one for Javerbaum.

I'm tempted to think this is a different Robert Siegel. Can anyone make a confirmation either way? I just don't see one of the principle journalists on NPR being a contributor/editor of the Onion. -R. fiend 19:17, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It is a different Robert Siegal. --TheGrza 23:22, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

Incorrect external link?

Just read the Wikipedia entry on the Onion. Tried the external link that should point to the september 19, 2001 edition of the Onion for which the following URL is listed in the article:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010927221133/www.theonion.com/

However, this link seems to point to the september 26, 2001 edition of the Onion.

I have looked around on http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://theonion.com, but was unable to find the correct URL there. The archive lists the 19 september 2001 under the following link:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010919093414/http://www.theonion.com/

but this in fact leads to a 'page not found' error message, so it seems there is also an indexing fault in web.archive.org .

From the Wikipedia entry on the Onion, which I found very informative by the way, I understand the 19 september 2001 article was considered for a Pullitzer, so it seems worthwhile to update/replace the link with one that leads to the article in question.

Is this indeed an erroneous link? If so, can someone provide a correct one? Would have done it myself, but have not been able to find a correct link and would also like confirmation that the current link is incorrect before I edit the page.

Thank you,

Regards,

Jacco

03:35, March 23d 2005 (GMT+01:00)

For the moment I've changed the date in the article to Sep 26. There's a link on the Sep 26 page to the 12 Sep issue, which oddly makes no mention of the attacks. My guess is that they were adding things day by day then, so the issue dates are arbitrary. I can't remember that far back, though. Mark¹ 02:39, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

From what I recall at the time, there was no Sep 19 issue. The first post-9/11 issue was the Sep 26 one, which dealt almost exclusively with the attacks. I am almost certain that that is what would have been nominated for a Pullitzer. --Rob. 20 Apr 2005

That is correct; there was no Sept 19 issue.

The Sept 12 issue makes no mention of 9/11 because it was already printed & delivered by Sept 11. The next week, Sept 19, I'm sure there was no new issue. I'm fairly sure that, instead, they re-issued an older edition (they do that sometimes, over Christmas or during the summer--I guess when they take the week off).

Thus the Sept 26 issue was the one that dealt with 9/11--I added a link to the correct issue.

(I think they've changed their archiving system, because the link I found to the 9/26 issue is not in the same format as the links above, and it seems stable, in contrast to the complaints above that the archived links don't work after a while. We'll see I guess).

Vcrs 21:09, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Fictional newspaper?

Anyone think this should be added to Category:Fictional newspapers? --the wub 10:42, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No. The Onion is an actual newspaper with a tangible, physical presence in reality, which happens to contain (primarily) made-up content. Category:Fictional newspapers deals with newspapers which don't actually exist physically, and whose only existence is a mention in some other ficitional work. -- Tmhand 15:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Onion Radio News

I've heard short audio clips produced by The Onion on the Howard Stern show, although none recently. Are they still in production? Were they produced exclusively for his show or were they syndicated somehow? --Feitclub 06:28, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

iirc, one or some of the local madison or milwaukee radio stations used to broadcast them regularly, circa 1999(?). so, i'm fairly certain they weren't produced solely for stern's show, but i could be wrong. --Wedge 05:38, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Strike for real?

Is the Onion writer's strike for real, or is it just a not funny joke while they take a week off in the summer for vacations. Google News doesn't mention it at all. What's up with it?

Charles (Kznf) July 6, 2005 17:48 (UTC)

It is indeed just a joke while the staff takes a break. --Jacobw 7 July 2005 18:08 (UTC)

Outdated links?

The links at the end of the page are dead. They shouldn't be deleted until there are some replacements found. I'm sure those articles are still on the web somewhere.

Wikipedia makes The Onion

In the Sep 28, 2005 issue - "Congress Abandons WikiConstitution" I don't know which is worse, the implication that Congress allows its members to "edit" the Constitution (or otherwise interpret it for their own purposes), or that Joe Editor would upload inappropriate items into it. In any case, its funny.... --Easter Monkey 02:15, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I retitled "Homage to Wikipedia" to "Wikipedia References", (and added the Larry Groznic one) which seemed more descriptive, or at least, slightly less assumptive. :D Is that okay? --Wedge 05:08, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Why was this section even there? The only possible reason a Wikipedia mention was notable is because this is Wikipedia, average person doesn;t care... List it on the media references of Wikipedia (or whatever that page is) but not here. DreamGuy 08:02, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Coverage of Bush Lawyers Threatening The Onion

Sasquatch suggested I shorten the article on this - he removed it entirely but wrote to ask me to put in a shorter version, which I did - and moved the rest to its own page. He therefore did not intend to remove the section entirely, since it's a pretty relevant event for The Onion.

By the way, the Bush lawyers pulled the same cease-and-desist with the satire site whitehouse.org, which didn't have good lawyers like The Onion and caved, and changed their presidential seal to a spoof seal with a vulture on it - last I checked.

Ok, I'm going to open myself up here. I don't have a problem with a section on Bush vs. The Onion. What I do have a problem with is having a completely separate article about Bush lawyers "threatening" The Onion. I am a huge fan, I had a subscription at one point, and read it weekly online. However, the Onion satirizes a great deal of topics, not just President Bush, noone is immune to their satire. Devoting a section of the article, fine, but making a whole article about it is un-encylopedic. Furthermore, I think that the section heading needs to be changed. Threatened? Perhaps, but in the grand scheme of things, I don't think that "threatening" works. We can still have the information, but we can be much less inflammatory about it. --Easter Monkey 04:23, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

It's reasonable that someone who gets a cease-and-desist letter from the White House Counsel's office - especially from this White House - is going to feel "threatened" rather than peachy. With the added fact that the White House is using this presidential seal statute against a target that happens to have doggedly criticized the administration, a target that qualifies as well as anyone in history for the statute not applying to them, it's clear they're trying to intimidate a potent critic into silence. That is threatening, not only to the Onion but to the country - calling it such is the most accurate description we have to objectively, even encyclopedically, report the facts of the situation. Taking that stance is not "inflammatory", it's "acknowledging the First Amendment as part of our Constitution" - something even Republicans might want to try. ~ Reaverdrop 07:38, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

"it's clear they're trying to intimidate a potent critic into silence" is a pretty biased statement, and one that's certainly pretty ludicrous if you think about it. "That is threatening, not only to the Onion but to the country - calling it such is the most accurate description we have to objectively, even encyclopedically, report the facts of the situation" PLEASE please please go read Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View before making such rationalizations again. DreamGuy 08:09, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, a couple of things: A. This is the english (language) wikipedia, not the American wikipedia. A good deal of wikipedians do not have any kind of protections under the first amendment of "our constitution" (whose constitution? wikipedias?) B. Inflammatory? I say yes. Tomato, tomahto perhaps, but in this instance I feel very strongly that it is. Anyway, like I said, I don't have a problem with the entry stating that there has been a conflict between Bush and the Onion, but you're going about it the wrong way and we need to keep politics out of the article in general. --Easter Monkey 09:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

The recent edit to the section in question by Kznf looks acceptable (to me) as it is factual and written in a detached, unemotional style. --Easter Monkey 03:05, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed... Although it would be nicer with italics on names of publications per style guidelines. DreamGuy 07:34, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Movie?

All of the editors of The Onion are listed on imdb.com as being in The Onion: The Movie. Does anyone know what the heck that is? -Arctic.gnome 02:17, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Nightline Episode

I was surprised to not see a mention of the fact that The Onion was once profiled in an episode of Nightline. That was a classic. A classic farse.

AV Club?

As the current article notes, the AV club was overhauled within the last year. In its online incranation, at least, the resulting "AV Club" has undergone an almost complete mitosis from its parent site -- it presents itself under its own domain name, with a much more formal and self-contained infrastructure.

I have added some content to reflect this, but it begins to bulge at the seams. Perhaps the AV club needs its own section? Its own entry? I'm noo much of a newbie to note rpecedence, but if nothing else, the additions I've made will hopefully provide parity of coverage for now between the Onion and the new, improved AV club. -- Jfarber 23:18, 19 January 2006 (EST)

Hey, I'd love to see an A.V. Club entry. But then I'm the A.V. Club editor and I understand it's not wiki-cool to write your own entries. I'd help anyone out who wanted to write it, however. You can contact me via the site. -- kphipps3000 14:25, July 17, 2006 (CT)

Predictions and Correlations to reality?

Should there be a section for articles that actually have a strong basis in life, or have predicted something? For example the five bladed razor -- JeebusSez 17:28, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I think so. Mention should also be made of this infamous article, which fits in somewhere between uncanny prescience and the satirically deadpan reporting of the obvious: Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over' -- User:kjkrum

Parody or satire?

It is stated in the article that The Onion is a parody newspaper. But according to the article on parody, this is specifically aimed at other artworks, while The Onion uses to poke fun at a variety of topics. I think it'd be proper to refer to it as a satire newspaper. Andrés D. 19:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Was curious about this, so I read up on parody. The definition of parody seems to allow easily for application of the term to not just a specific artwork, but to a form of art, and, as far as I can tell, the Onion is parodying the newspaper as a medium / art form fairly effectively, and with aplomb. It's individual articles are satire, but as a whole, the Onion IS a parody -- they could have merely satirized news within a framework that itself was not a parody, but presented its satirical articles straightforwardly...but they did and do not. My vote: Let the parody designation lie. -- Jfarber 12:51, 12 March 2006 (EST)

I agree with Andrés D. that the Onion is satire and not parody. I'd argue that the Onion is not merely a parody of one type of media; to name a few, it parodies podunk newspapers with its 'Area Man'... type articles, USA Today with its Infographics, and TV news networks with its election coverage. I can see the argument for the whole thing as a parody, but I think satire is more accurate. Look at the first paragraph of Wikipedia's article on satire:

Satire is a literary technique of writing or art which exposes the follies of its subject (for example, individuals, organizations, or states) to ridicule, often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change. In Celtic societies, it was thought a bard's satire could have physical effects, similar to a curse. The humor of such a satire tends to be subtle, using irony and deadpan humour liberally. Most satire has specific, readily identifiable targets; however there is also a less focused, formless genre known as Menippean satire. Example: The film, The Great Dictator (1940) by Charlie Chaplin is a satire on Adolf Hitler and his Nazi army.

-Eeblet 00:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Madison/papers are free

Didn't know where to add this: The Onion is avaible for free to anyone in the Madison, Wisconsin area. From the Onion: "One copy of each edition of The Onion is available free to Madison area residents and visitors each week. Anyone removing papers in bulk will be prosecuted." Just a little trivia. -- Al™ 08:19, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe that paper copies are always free. They distribute in a handful of cities. Dylan 18:18, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

But is has a price on it? -- Al™ 14:19, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Can confirm free papers in San Francisco -- a treat, as I'd never before been in an Onion distribution city. JFarber 20:47, 23 March 2006 (EST)

I've always gotten/seen them for free in Chicago as well. Panastasia 01:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Free copies in Denver/Boulder as well. BabuBhatt 01:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Free copies in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area also. As far as I am aware, all print copies distributed in cities are free. --Natalie 00:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Ditto for NYC. (Ads are also city-specific)—Wasabe3543 08:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

the papers are free in austin too, at waterloo records, specifically

August 31, 2005 overhaul

As the article states, August 31 marked a number of changes in format for The Onion. However, our article still presents it as "Here is what The Onion does" (actually how it used to be), and then, "Here's how The Onion was changed." If these changes are permanent (and they presumambly are), shouldn't we rewrite that, at least to reflect how the newspaper is NOW, and maybe afterwards a description of how it used to be? Dylan 18:22, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

awards section?

why is there nothing about awards or nominations in the "awards and nominations" section? it seems like it should be called "Sept. 11 Coverage."

Area man

Since Area man redirects here, maybe this expression should be included with a comment. --130.225.201.102 13:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Onion Article Taken Seriously...Again...

http://sufficientscruples.com/blog/2006/07/06/anti-choice-tool-confirms-stereotype-one-in-a-continuing-series/

• I had originally added this to the section in the main article but it was removed and placed here instead. I'm not putting it back because I'm guessing there was a good reason. Is it inappropriate because it was a blog...? Nowadays, such things -are- "widely read". --67.171.78.155 21:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I was just in the middle of editing the section -- my text is longer and, I think, less POVish. Let me know what you think of it.

--Eeblet 00:31, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The section is for published or broadcasted instances of the media taking the Onion seriously. If we listed every blog where this happened, it would be a long list of very little interest to anyone. --W.marsh 20:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, first of all, there's no mention in the article that items in this section have to have appeared in a professional medium. So on that count, either the Peter Shinn section goes in or the section is modified to 'instances in which the onion was taken seriously by professional media', or somesuch. Second, the second instance listed didn't appear in professional media, it appeared on Fred Phelps' website. Third, this wasn't just your everyday ordinary person misunderstanding the Onion: it was the mother of all misunderstandings, and even when he was corrected, repeatedly, Peter Shinn posted two replies feebly defending himself and proving that he still wasn't fully convinced that the Onion wasn't a real newspaper. Hundreds of people posted replies to his blog posts (none of which are easily accessible anymore, unfortunately). It was a veritable internet phenomenon, if it's not perfect for the 'Onion Taken Seriously' section here, I don't know what is. Finally, sorry that I missed this discussion, I didn't read the discussion page carefully enough (the name Shinn didn't appear here, so this part escaped my notice).--airplanepilot

The Fred Phelps thing can go as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, has anyone covered this blog thing other than the blog itself? All the links go to that blog. That's rather self referential and could be original research. Like I say, I'm sure this happens on lots of blogs and forums and so on... I'm sure it's really interesting to the people involved, but outside of that, I don't think many people will really care and it just makes the article boring to document every instance of it. --W.marsh 16:19, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I say we keep the Fred Phelps thing and the Peter Shinn thing. They're both hilarious, and notable. I'll find some links from DailyKos and other large blogs (which I think proves the incident's noteriety), and add them to the section. As for the section being boring, did you follow any of the links? The whole incident was hilarious! Again, I think it's worth keeping. I'm clearly not the only one who thinks so, too.

The Peter Shinn thing was the subject of a Salon.com story, for what it's worth. -- Coneslayer 17:21, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

That's something. My concern was just that it was typical blog stuff.. everyone on the website thinks it's massive (and how could you disagree with them!?), no one else has ever even heard of it or particularly cares. But some relatively mainstream coverage seems to change that. --W.marsh 17:28, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

deletion

In the section about Onion articles being taken seriously, the Beijing News bullet point includes the explanation: "they were apparently unaware of The Onion's satirical nature)". I'm going to delete this, as it seems redundant due to the explanation at the head of the section. --Natalie 00:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

article about wikipedia on the onion

File:Wikipedia in The Onion 2006.jpg

On the front page, even.

There is currently a very funny article on the Onion entitled "Wikipedia Celebrates 750 years of American independence." Might it be possible, for once, for Wikipedians not to include any reference to themselves in an another medium, in the article about that medium? That's all I ask. 206.223.233.241 03:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a good one. If we can somehow reference it, I think that'd be useful. We must be doing something right if we've attracted the Onion! --Plumbago 08:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's a joke about how Wikipedia cannot be trusted for purely factual information. You're proud of this? 208.44.236.60 22:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

We are proud to have reached the level of significance where the Onion acknowledges our existence. The Onion lambasts everything, if they wrote an article praising wikipedia i'd be pissed off at them for not being funny. The article shows some prime examples of vandalism I, and probably many others have encountered. Most vandalism is reverted quickly, and the incident described would be very unlikely, but therein lays the humor 208.44.236.60. You may be interested in checking out the page on satire. ReverendG 05:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Here is how I had added an entry on that article to the Serious part of the page: "Another article of The Onion called Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence [8] (published July 26, 2006, about 500 years too early) demonstrates the visionary power of the editors of this otherwise satirical self-reflective magazine." It was promptly removed. I think it should have been improved rather than removed.

I say keep it, it's funny. And keep an eye out on pages like American Revolution and The United States for onion-related vandalism. Dina 16:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It's fine to include references to Wikipedia/Wikipedians if that content is encyclopedic. One of today's best known english-language humor publications running a lead article on Wikipedia definently warrants a mention, probably just a sentence or two though... don't know if it really belongs in the lead. --W.marsh 16:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Does it though? I've read the article, and it reads just like every other Onion article. Just because its about Wikipedia doesn't make it any more encyclopedic than any other Onion article. To favor an article just because its about Wikipedia, in my opinion, is a form of POV. I'm in favor of removing the reference here. However, to W.marsh's point, I agree that it very notable from the point of view of Wikipedia that the Onion mentioned it. In other words, if such a mention were to be made it should be in the article Wikipedia in popular culture, but not here. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 17:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Partnership with CNN.com

CNN has started running an Onion article every week: [9]. Surely worth including in the article? - Kookykman|(t)e 22:52, 17 September 2006 (UTC)