The Onion leaves us crying

Posted August 30th, 2007 at 4:55 pm by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor

Number of Comments 2 Comments / Filed in: Working at Yahoo!

As part of our internal Hack Speaker Series, sponsored by our Advanced Development Division (you with me still?), Yahoos were recently treated to an hour of satire and cynicism by Peter Koechley, managing editor of America’s finest news source, The Onion. Peter (known also as brother of Nate Koechley, one of our YUI gurus and this blog’s technical muse) offered first-hand stories of newsgathering, adver-newsgathering, news manipulation, and flat-out news falsifying.

Peter kicked things off with a little overview of The Onion’s media empire. I was surprised to learn that they’re read in 752 countries, have news bureaus in 412 countries, are broadcast on 14,800 radio stations, offer a 24-hour news network, have a multinational intelligence agency, own 95% of all grocery store circulars, are the proprietors of an upscale haberdashery, offer mercenary embedded journalists for hire, and employ newsboys from an orphanage, which they also run.
We were treated to a view into the decision-making process inside the nation’s No. 1 newsroom, which consists of a 5:00am meeting with all 1,300 reporters, in which they’re (somewhat dictatorially) told what gets published and what lands on the floor. Editors are challenged with decisions such as which gets a full story, a short, a video or radio story, or a one-liner that links to nothing. Peter illuminated us about why “Earthquake Sets Japan Back to 2147” deserved a full story, noting that it wasn’t hard to find a photo of Japan that projects a scene 140 years into the future (they simply added a green orb in the sky). He also explained why a story headlined “Churchgoer Tips God for Excellent Week” required a briefer bit, “Chinese Announce Alliance With The Ants” was ideal as a radio spot, and why “Baby Given Cat’s Room” says it all.

The Onion takes great pride in covering what other news organizations overlook. Take animals, for instance. No other outlet covered the quality-control issues that led to “Dog Breeders Issue Massive Recall of ‘07 Pugs.” And their investigative reporting is unparalleled, as their exclusive on “Congress Threatens to Leave DC Unless New Capitol is Built” underscores. The only other world news organization that covered the story was the Beijing Evening News. (Actually they plagiarized The Onion, then demanded proof that it wasn’t true, and ultimately “apologized” with this deflection, “Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them with the aim of making money.”)

Here are a few Q&A nuggets you Onion diehards might enjoy:

Why doesn’t The Onion get sued daily for libel? “Because anyone who sues The Onion would look bad. People would say, ‘Oh, you got made fun of by The Onion and now you’re too much of a baby.’ We benefit from broad first amendment laws. We once got a cease-and-desist letter from Harriet Meyer’s office in the middle of the C.I.A. leak investigations — clearly a top priority. They said it was illegal to use the White House seal (a law written by Nixon, of all people) without approval. Our lawyers responded with a legal translation of ‘You’ve gotta be kidding’ and our editor offered a list of other things they could do with taxpayer dollars other than pursuing satirists. We never heard from the White House again.”
How do you see the Onion News Network as being different from The Daily Show or The Colbert Report? “We love them. They claim to be reporting fake news, but they look at what’s really happened. We actually create fake news and report on it. They can also really comment every day, while we have to do things that are much broader. We definitely have different niches.”
Have any of the people you’ve satirized become celebrities? “The people we feature in our reporting are generally people we know. People who come to the office, our book signings, live upstairs or downstairs, work at the deli we go to. You can basically reverse-engineer the Onion staff’s life by looking at our photos. The guy who crashed the Web was a design intern. He was just hired by Comedy Central, where he’s continually referred to as his character ‘Eric Tipton.’”
How does your editorial team know when a story has the potential to go viral? “Things with brands, like Radio Shack, tend to do well, especially if we reverse their image. The Web Crash story did well on the Internet, though we still got some comments like ‘Did that really happen?’”
How much traffic to you get? “Lots. Millions and millions. Depends on how funny we are.”
Are you ever surprised by what didn’t work? “We always have something for everyone. The goal is to have at least one thing that’s hilarious to someone.”
How often do you get comments from your subjects? “Sometimes it annoys us how appreciative people are. There are people we abhor who respond with, ‘Oh, I’m in The Onion! I made it!’ And we’re like, ‘Dude, we hate you.’ After we ran ‘Gen. Tommy Franks Quits Army to Pursue Solo Bombing Projects,’ his aide-de-camp asked us for signed copies. It was our first time being contacted by an aide-de-camp.”
Does your ad sales team ever have a hard time selling ads to traditional brands? “Not as much as they used to. We have to get fairly cool advertisers, who are ok with having swearing and horrible things near their ads. But that doesn’t seem to hurt us. And we definitely don’t ever want to tone things down because we get more readers if we don’t. It’s death if anyone catches a whiff of us chickening out. We don’t have to answer to anybody — we’re not owned by Viacom.”
Do you ever run fake ads? “Sometimes, but nobody pays for them.”
What can you tell me about Doyle Redland, Onion Radio News correspondent? “His photo is actually my dad. We have a very large budget.” Says brother Nate, “It takes a lot of makeup to make him look that mean.”