‘The Onion,’ America’s Finest News Source, to Restart the Presses With Print Editions

Ryan Berenz
The Onion Christ Returns to NBA print issue

In the fall of 1993, I was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

I quickly discovered The Onion, a weekly satirical newspaper that was available free at many campus buildings and other establishments throughout Madison.

I did not imagine the kind of influence it would have over the next 30 years.

The Onion was — and still is — some of the funniest stuff I have read. One of the earliest issues I can recall featured an in-depth investigative piece called “BEER! It Kicks Ass!” I exhaustively fact-checked the statements made in that article and found the reporting to be truthful.

Even the ads for local Madison bars, tattoo shops, record stores, etc., were clever. There was a sponsored “Drunk of the Week” column, and the tales from the police reports were often as entertaining as the articles.

The A.V. Club had reviews of movies, CDs, concerts, TV shows and more, plus the “Justify Your Existence” interviews with musicians and the year-end “Least Essential Albums” list.

They ran weekly recaps of John Leguizamo’s FOX sketch-comedy show House of Buggin’, including a recap of an unaired episode. The show was canceled after that week’s edition had gone to press.

During a night out, one of my friends was approached by Onion staffers and offered the opportunity to be a model for a cover story. The hitch was that it was a nude photo shoot. My friend passed. Not long after, The Onion broke front-page news about “New Superhero Can Only Fly When Naked.”

The Onion not only spoofed current events, but it also slaughtered the sacred cows of print journalism, mocking how news was both served and consumed.

Throughout the ’90s, I eagerly awaited the new weekly issue to drop. I’d clip out my favorite stories and either archive them or decorate my walls with them. Through the 2000s, I’d add Our Dumb Century, Our Dumb World, The Ecstasy of Defeat, Dispatches From the Tenth Circle and other volumes to my bookshelf.

As its audience grew outside of the Midwest, The Onion became a many-tentacled media empire, and then struggled with dwindling, fragmented audiences and declining advertising revenue as most many-tentacled media empires have in the past 20 years.

In 2013, The Onion published its final edition in print.

The company has been in ownership flux over the past decade. In the spring, it landed in the hands of Global Tetrahedron (the company’s name is a running Onion gag).

The new owners, wisely sensing there’s a market in nostalgic Onion readers, is now offering subscriptions with various levels of exclusive content.

Subscribers at the $60 (for a limited time) or higher level will receive 12 monthly issues of The Onion in print and delivered by mail.

Early subscribers get a special print edition of The Onion’s “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” Democratic National Convention coverage.

It was not a hard sell for me.

The Onionati

Once again, I am experiencing the joy of anticipation for new issue of The Onion to drop. These editions will be more like collectors’ items for me. My children’s children will see tangible evidence of that glorious moment when I helped restore humankind’s trust in the power of the printed word to lead them out of ignorance!

So long as they bring back “Drunk of the Week.”

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