Christine Wenc, the author of Funny Because it’s True: How The Onion Created Modern American News Satire, was actually a member of The Onion‘s original staff from 1988 to 1990, when she was a student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She is the ideal participant observer to describe the unusual origin and descriptive goals of this free weekly newspaper of funny fake news, now available on the internet.
In many ways, Madison, Wisconsin was the ideal community to introduce this kind of communication. The city boasted a generally enlightened and politically savvy citizenry, which was roughly equally divided in their conservative and liberal political views, all in the context of well-established cooperative traditions in housing and agriculture. More negatively, this area at the time also featured some of the worst disparities of racial inequality to be found in the United States.
The only non-local paper available then in Madison was the National Enquirer, when The Onion bloomed. No Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, for example, were sold in the town which could give readers a broader perspective while coping with the salacious and at best partially true articles from the Enquirer.
Wenc presents all the early individuals who founded this new kind of paper and describes them by name and their accompanying interests, lifestyles, attitudes, personalities, and varying contributions to the enterprise. The founders in 1988 were Timothy Keck, who resigned in May 1989, and Christopher Johnson who lasted 24 years. Once the name of the paper had been determined, Keck and Johnson explained, “It’s totally random. People will think it means something, but it doesn’t. We’re gonna [sic] make up fake news. And people are going to believe it.” True, and they had no way of knowing that they were forerunners of several widely accepted news channels and many podcasts today.
What is different is that The Onion’s writers never pretended to be truthful journalists. Rather, they planned to focus on life at University of Wisconsin and in Madison while producing a parody of the Weekly World News and the National Enquirer. They did so by selling many local ads to cover expenses and the very minimal salaries for their staff. Eventually they incorporated their paper based on copying the incorporation papers from local businesses which were available in the library. Some individuals were named as the publisher or the accountant of their organization, even though no such positions existed. It did add credibility for the assurances of their audience.
The original two-room office atmosphere was one of barely controlled chaos. Tim Keck described it as a “hellhole” littered by beer cans, old coffee, and piles of cigarettes and bongs. That work setting was also seen as “subversive,” “different,” and “hilarious.”
Scott Dikkers, a staff member generally considered to be both very funny and disciplined, feared that he was losing his valuable but limited well of creativity by working there. He quit 14 times in that first year. That itself must be some kind of record. Nevertheless, this free counterculture paper survived and continues to this day despite frequent turnovers of underpaid personnel and the funding solely by the sales of ads often featuring coupons for pizza and beverages.
Keck clarified, “We do spoofs or real stretches of the truth. I’d rather people believe some of the stories are true. It keeps them guessing.” Johnson added, “We’re not claiming to be news.” That unique perspective is what made The Onion succeed from 1988 to today and longer. A careful and critical analysis of other current media suggests that it has indeed influenced many other papers and broadcast programs who strongly and clearly claim to be presenting the real news.
Christine Wenc, who was there at the beginning of this unusual paper, has classified The Onion as an internet trope, which has inspired many similar journalistic papers and websites on college campuses and elsewhere around the world. She notes ironically that some of their made-up predictions have actually turned out to be real. Imitation indeed is also flattery.
Wenc also has described the writers and staff of the paper from the beginning as creative, brilliant, interesting, compassionate, and hilarious people. Pete Haise, an early contributor and advertising manager, was known to be “baked all the time,” presumably a condition leading to usable comedic material. Working with the different writers on that single printed product truly bonded them all. Producing satire, which is intended to bring discomfort as well as humor, and printing those results have also taught readers of The Onion about satire and other comedic methods. Rich Dahm, for example, invented the motto “You Are Dumb” which frequently filled some unused space as needed in the paper.
Some standard varieties of frequently printed Onion jokes:
a. stating a misplaced focus
b. celebrations of boring incidents or material
c. making small things sound big: for example, the headline of a published story: “Rubber Band Needed” suggesting that it is a major story of breaking news.
d. emphasizing a stupid non sequitur
e. expanding jokes that idiots think are funny until they do become funny
f. “Fuck you” reader stories (so classified because idiot readers do not deserve to see them).
g. The “Drunk of the Week” special feature in which a real very intoxicated person is interviewed at that time and recorded for print later
h. Taking a traditional newspaper’s serious headline and then adding one word or deleting one word to make it untrue and funny.
In an NPR interview in 2013 the host Renee Montagne asked the then editor-in-chief of The Onion, Will Tracy,about a story of a man sitting at his desk in front of a computer. The title of the piece was “Area Man Knows All the Shortcut Keys.” For many people it would be a struggle to find some humor in that title, but for the NPR host the title and picture instantly produced a hearty laugh. Then, immediately host Montagne found another amusing title: “Genetically Modified Chicken Lays Its Own Dipping Sauce.” Again, different stimuli for different readers of humor. When reading, of course, you rarely have others who can see the same print at the same time, as opposed to a video presentation.
Editor Tracy acknowledged that they do a lot of very grotesque food stuff humor in The Onion. He believes “there are a lot of disgusting meat products and fast food products and factory farmed products” to make jokes about. He added the zinger that “there is something Midwestern about that,” thereby taking a bit of a jab at Madison in the process.
Tracy explicitly admits that for the humor published in The Onion “no subject is off limits…. we have made jokes about war, genocide, rape, disease, just the worst things on Earth.” He agreed that reading about such topics may make you feel “kind of sick to your stomach, but it’s kind of funny.”
The policy of The Onion has been to never repeat a joke that they have done previously. Tracy mentions that the staff has a fear of such repetition, but he takes comfort in that “there are awful people doing awful things every day. So that will give us more material, in reality, to draw from.” There is something in the usually horrible evening news for everybody to create humor about.
Wenc appropriately documents in detail the course of the development of The Onion as a business over the years. At its founding in 1988 it was merely a weekly exercise of a few university students to write and produce a free weekly newspaper. Eventually most of the seemingly picayune issues that all other publications must deal with, such as hiring competent staff, paying expenses, selling ad space in the paper (often including coupons for customers) to cover expenses, assigning the work of traditional occupations, such as marketing, accounting, technical support, and more to available staff members, regardless of their lack of relevant competency in the area.
In primarily an intellectual humor creating function, there had to be a variety of points of view on what is or is not funny. Such discussions were typically highlighted with many omnipresent staff personality conflicts. Also, pure business issues arose such as the unfair and probably illegal competition of other publications which were copying The Onion‘s articles word for word without attribution. Will internet ads or print ads be more cost effective? Editorial decision making had to intervene on issues such as potential obscenities or at least any offensive topics. Of course, the most obvious defining matter was whether the article, headline, or drawing was funny or not. It is understood, of course, that not everything would be funny to everyone.
To give readers unfamiliar with actual issues of The Onion, here are some provocative headlines from past publications which illustrate the invented stories purporting to be genuine news:
“Vap-O-Rub: The Silent Killer”
“Dysfunctional Family Brought Together by Liquor”
“An Important Message from the Alpha Male: Attention Apes! Your Leader Speaks! Hear him!”
“Stock Market Soars: You’ll Never See a Penny of It”
“Christ Returns to NBA”
“Belt-Sanding Hoodlum Receives ‘Outstanding Citizen’ Award”
“Dead Guy Found”
“Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity Is Finally Over”
Given their goal of hard driving humor, the paper did “cross the line” of social acceptance and occasionally agreed to make public apologies for specific tasteless untrue remarks, for example, regarding child Oscar nominee actress Quvenzhane Wallis, an offensive 9/11 subway ad, President Obama’s attendance at the White House Maintenance Staff’s Annual Dinner, and “Dying Boy Gets Wish: To Pork Janet Jackson.”
When a widely read satirical publication belittles and defames with humor certain individuals and organizations that are popularly viewed, there can be backlashes and often threatened lawsuits. To avoid financial disaster, it becomes standard practice when pressured for individuals and companies to choose to offer a public apology.
Over the years this free weekly newspaper felt the competition of new media which had the effects of attracting readers away from holding and reading a classic printed paper. The rise of the internet, multiple websites of topics and individuals, and even cable TV were distracting and effectively competing for eyeballs. Even the term “news” now seemed pliable in this new environment.
The print edition of this book was suspended on December 13, 2013, but relaunched on August 16, 2024. Various communication companies have purchased and resold various aspects of The Onion. The online edition is now available world-wide. Its web address is www.theonion.com.
Other efforts have included the Onion News Network (a daily web video broadcast) but it was cancelled in March 2012.
Onion has offered a Video Series, digital studios with a series of YouTube videos, and most recently of timely interest is a 20-minute mockumentary of limited release in October 2025 entitled Jeffrey Epstein: Bad Pedophile.
Despite the many changes in ownership and management over the years, most of them have resulted in improved and innovative humorous communications of genuine and fake news.
The Onion has survived!
Christine Wenc has detailed the history of The Onion from its beginning in 1988 until now. She has named names and identified the good and bad elements which characterizes the developmental history of the very unusual and very important topics of this book. As she concludes, “I feel honored to have made the acquaintance of so many brilliant, interesting, compassionate, and hilarious people through this process. It was also just really fun.”
