A news outlet pivoting to print may sound like satire in the digital age. But for The Onion, the US’s 37-year-old satirical news outlet, the gambit is very real — and so is its apparent success. Since relaunching its print edition last year, The Onion has attracted more than 56,000 paying subscribers spanning all 50 states and dozens of countries overseas, Editor-in-Chief Chad Nackers says. While the stories and ads that appear in the paper are all fake, he says, the enduring appeal of satire is anything but.
Speaking from Chicago, where The Onion is based, Nackers discusses the transition to print, why they’ll never touch AI and what lessons mainstream media can take from The Onion’s success.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Photo: Bloomberg
Reuters: What has the return to print allowed The Onion to do editorially that digital couldn’t?
Chad Nackers: We all loved the print edition when we had it, and part of that is that the jokes all play off of each other. It’s a little different than how someone’s social media feed might be nowadays, where The Onion joke you might get in your feed might be just the most controversial one. You’re getting a more catered display of jokes and so, in that way, we think about the mix a little bit more in having some politics, entertainment, sports. So there’s a wide variety.
In the past, we had ads in the paper and that takes up a lot of space. So when we were (getting back into print), I was like, well, let’s just use that as another opportunity for satires (and) put fake ads in. It allows us to comment on corporations and stuff in a way that isn’t headline-based, which is much more difficult to frame and have it be concise. It’s been great because I think the writers enjoy having a new canvas to work on.
Photo: Reuters
R: You’ve picked quite a time to revert back to print with a second Trump term, wars in Europe and the Middle East, the rise of AI. How is your newsroom tackling this moment?
CN: In the past, we’d write a bunch of headlines and make jokes that are predicting what’s going to happen versus reacting. And I think for Trump, because of the way he is, you have to react to what’s going on.
In a way, all the awful stuff that’s happening is great fodder for satire. It feels more serious. It has some teeth. I think it’s draining emotionally and mentally. But from a satirical perspective, it’s not that bad as far as having something to work off of.
R: You’ve been at The Onion nearly 30 years. Looking back, was there a particular moment that felt stranger than fiction, or which felt easier to satirize?
CN: When I started, it was the Clinton era. We went into the Internet boom. The economy was really doing well and we were a Gen X publication, so it’s a lot of like pop cultural references and making fun of current things and putting Bill Clinton into crazy situations.
I think first it was (George W.) Bush vs (Al) Gore, because that was so unprecedented to not have an election confirmed at that point. And so waiting like a couple of weeks for all of that stuff kind of changed the dynamic of everything.
You have multiple years of the Iraq War, and then we hit a recession. So we had some real topics to cover, and it was like the news became a more important factor. I remember our editor-in-chief once in the late ‘90s was like, “I would love it if someone picked up a paper around here once in a while.” (At the time, writers) were just coming and writing jokes about their pet topics and having fun with it. And there’s certainly still an element of that. We try to have some fun stuff. But the stakes are just higher now.
R: Do you ever worry about satire being misread as misinformation?
CN: I think that’s had a significant effect on us. Since even before 2016, maybe 2014, there were more labels placed on stuff and (satire) was treated like misinformation by social media. The Onion enjoyed a brief period where it was just an open hose and our stuff was just torrenting out and everybody was kind of seeing it and they’re just like, oh, The Onion’s everywhere.
Sometimes people will take our stuff seriously. We did a joke in the early 2000s about Congress threatening to move out of the Capitol if they didn’t get a new building with a retractable dome, and that was picked up by the Beijing Times.
That’s a consequence that we sort of chuckle at; it’s never the goal. We don’t want to fool people. You’d think that people would be a little bit more media-savvy, but all it takes (is for someone to) share a screenshot of CNN and change the headline at the bottom and, if it’s slightly plausible, they’re willing to be like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening.” So we’ve entered strange times.
R: Is there a place for AI in satire?
CN: We’re 100 percent against AI. We don’t use it at all. We’re here to create art. We’re very fortunate to have these jobs, and we love doing them. We don’t need to have a machine make it for us. It just feels kind of lazy. (Satire) is very human. Obviously, you could put in things and edit it so that it would probably work if you knew what you’re doing, but I think AI doesn’t really grasp those nuances. It sees them from an analytical way. We had an instance where we had an article about geologists recommending that you eat like two to three rocks a day, and (Google’s) AI was picking it up and telling people that they should eat rocks. We personally do not want AI going through our entire archives and trying to steal all our stuff either. (Editorial note: Google did not respond to a request for comment.)
That’s part of our thing — it’s humans making things for other humans. And it’s also nice to get offline. So having a newspaper where you can sit and have a cup of coffee or be out on a park bench someplace, it’s kind of nice.
R: What lessons do you think other news outlets can learn from The Onion’s success?
CN: It should always be speaking truth to power. If you don’t want that, then we will be the publication that provides that for people. I think coming at things from an honest point and really talking about what’s going on. You could just report it in a factual way and let people decide.
I think a lot of satire writers really appreciate the power of satire and how it is different than just regular journalism in that we can make a point, we can mock what’s going on and make people laugh about it. And that is incredibly powerful. It’s hard to withstand the laughter. You can stomp around and be as authoritarian as you want, but if no one respects that, it’s not going to have any power.
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