"Rest in peace, The Onion. You will be missed."

[babylonsister]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/27/1211908/-The-Onion-Calls-it-Quits


Sun May 26, 2013 at 09:10 PM PDT
The Onion Calls it Quits

by The Troubadour

For nearly 25 years, The Onion has been satirizing American politics and society with unparalleled brilliance. However, the fake news publication – or "America's Finest News Source" – has sadly and stunningly announced that it will cease operations in 2014.

In a press release, The Onion's Editor-In-Chief, Will Tracy, explained what led to the publication's difficult decision:

The Onion has always been recognized as a first-rate satirical publication, making fun of all that is absurd in our socio-political world. However, in today's contemporary political environment, our brand has simply gotten muddled. And I can say with clarity that today's GOP is fully to blame.

It used to be that political satire was easy. All one had to do was find the absurd buried beneath the surface of a given story and employ satire to highlight that absurdity. To shine a light on it.

Now? Now you have headlines showing up in mainstream publications like "Kansas Republican Actually Opposes the Poor Buying More Food" and "Conservatives Less Likely to Buy Energy Efficient Bulbs if Labeled as Environmentally Friendly."

The absurdity of conservatives in this country has completely destroyed our business. Republicans have ruined us. Period.

New readers to The Onion can't tell anymore that we are a satirical publication. And established readers have been leaving our pages, finding greater absurdity at places like CNN and USA Today.


snip//

The Onion will continue operations through the upcoming presidential election, with its last issue set to be published on November 6, 2014. When asked why, Shebesta answered, "What better day for a satirical news outlet to close up shop?"

Indeed.

Rest in peace, The Onion. You will be missed.

[Brickbat]

1. Meta-satire.

Author's Note: Yes, I authored this piece, not The Onion -- though if the latter comes calling with a job offer, I have a number in mind.

[ctsnowman]

42. Excellent writing!

Thank you.

[sakabatou]

2. Is the Onion really going?

Edit: nvm

[Tx4obama]

3. No. The DailyKos piece is SATIRE :)

[freshwest]

35. OMG, I found that at the end of the piece. I had a sad for a moment. Praise The Root.

[babylonsister]

5. No one really knows.

[tblue]

33. No it's not!

http://m.now.msn.com/the-onion-is-not-shutting-down-its-a-cruel-internet-hoax

[Tx4obama]

4. ... upcoming presidential election, with its last issue set to be published on November 6, 2014

I wonder how many Republicans and TeaPartiers will fall for that!

[Gidney N Cloyd]

9. We should tell them Obama's running for a third term and the GOP refuses to field a candidate.

[BadgerKid]

6. If only The Onion itself wrote this!

Pure gold

[erpowers]

7. Could Not Always Tell the Difference

In recent months I could not always tell the difference between an Onion headline and a regular news headline. There were a number of times that I saw posts at DU that listed the title of an article and I checked the link to see if it was an article in the Onion.

[adieu]

16. I agree...

some of the headlines about what conservatives are doing, legislatively and otherwise, are beyond the absurd.

[bluemarkers]

22. me too!

My husband was reading something to me recently and I kept saying it's The Onion, it's not real! I had to see the article for myself! lol

sad

[hopemountain]

27. & me 3! nt

[ctsnowman]

40. Make it 4 NT

[sheshe2]

8. Love it babylonsister~

A bunch of us thought that if we wanted to keep doing weird and absurd shit, that we should just start covering the news for real.
But then we were like, Wait, we're just comedy writers, not journalists. We're overqualified!

[uriel1972]

10. I stopped visiting the Onion when I started crying instead of laughing...

Too close to the bone.

[Cleita]

11. Don't know if I'm crying because of this piece or because I peeled an onion. n/t

[lpbk2713]

12. " ... finding greater absurdity at places like CNN and USA Today."

Sad but true.

The Onion really filled a void and they will be missed.

[nolabear]

13. There 's a presidential election in 2014?

Did the GOP pull off something I didn't hear about?

[tblue]

34. That was the clue for those with eagle eyes.

I didn't catch it at first.

[scarletwoman]

14. They're shutting down due to the leek investigations.

[Enrique]

15. DUzy!

[BlueStreak]

20. That is excellent.

[ctsnowman]

41. Excellent!

[maddiemom]

49. Good one!

[LongTomH]

17. To the greatest page with this........quickly!!!!

The Onion has always been closer to reality than the "mainstream" news sources. I remember their prophetic headline from 2001: "Our national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally coming to a close."

[StevieM]

18. OMG! I was just talking about this over the weekend (without reading this article)

I was out-of-town visiting with my whole family. I saw my father, brother, sister, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was a big family weekend. On Monday, Memorial Day, we all got together at my aunt's house. And as usual, we talked some politics.

At one point, the subject of the Virginia elections came up. They were talking about how ridiculous Ken Cuccinelli and the Lt. Gubernatorial are. I then mentioned the lunatic running for attorney general. I told them about his proposal that women who have miscarriages be required to report them or face charges. They were astounded. I said that it was reminiscent of something you would read in the Onion, except it is happening in real life. Everyone laughed at the idiocy of the GOP and the time in which we live.

I swear....I had not yet read this article, or even heard about it.

[xoom]

19. The Onion will be missed.

[Tx4obama]

24. The text in the DailyKos article up in the OP is not real - it is SATIRE.

[BlueStreak]

21. All is not lost. They could use all that production capability to cover real news.

None of the networks seem to be doing that, so they would have the field to themselves.

[Blue State Bandit]

23. I give up!

[savalez]

25. It's Satire Squared!

Or Satire looking in a mirror doing satire with a mirror behind it. Er, something like that.

[Liberal_in_LA]

26. +100

[hopemountain]

28. perhaps they'll just rename themselves

a more pungent "the garlic".

[KoKo]

29. So it's just Satire from KOS site. But, I doubt that "Onion" or Cartoons will survive

much longer. It's just too hurtful to our President and the Establishment to have issues ridiculed.

So...there will be an end to "satire, cartoons and investigative journalism" or they will be marginalized. That stuff just causes one to get investigated by the DOJ or FBI/CIA and who wants to end up prosecuted for poking fun or digging into the "weeds."

Better to just Smile and Glad Hand and be "Part of the Crowd." No one wants to end up badly when the "full Power and Investigative Resources of the American Government" puts one on the "suspect list."

So...while it's "satire on Onion Satire"...it's probably the way things will be going in the future. This is not a time to "poke fun, or ask questions" when things are Soooo...Serious.

[FSogol]

45. Is your post satire? I can't tell.

[uppityperson]

30. So glad it is satire and not true.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

31. Can we keep the Onion going?

How much money do we need?

[Ikonoklast]

32. The Onion just made every DU Meta post look massively insignificant.

They just Mega-Meta'd the entire world.

[cynatnite]

36. I will have nothing to read for next year's presidential election now. n/t

[rhett o rick]

37. Good riddance.

[Demeter]

38. Oh NO! Where will we get the TRUTH from?

Onion was the only outlet that published the unvarnished facts, by pretending it was all in fun.

[AtheistCrusader]

39. WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS

Very meta

[Kurovski]

43. Holy shit. I nearly jumped out the window.

But I'm on the first floor.

I still owe you a phone call, sugar pumpkin!

[babylonsister]

51. Yes you do, sweetness!

Hope you are well!

[felix_numinous]

44. Irony is truly dead n/t

[Jamaal510]

46. I never really was a fan of political satire,

just because of the fact that conservatives have made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between satire and real news. For instance, there was the satirical piece where Ann Coulter refused to share a seat on a plane with a Black person. I actually believed it at first because judging by some of the things she has said in the past related to racial topics, Ann doing something like that in real-life wouldn't sound very farfetched to me at all.
I'll bet that these satirists have gotten quite a few people in trouble over their work; not everyone is savvy about political satire.

[mrdmk]

47. Yep, the Presidential race in 2014...

There is a major clue here folks!!!

[AnneD]

48. I am old enough to remember when.....

the Onion was satire, and we didn't get our nightly news from a comedy show.

[Jackpine Radical]

50. The Onion--a victim of Poe's Law

(as are about half the posters on this thread.)