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Shock discovery: American satire is funny (Filed: 06/09/2001)

THE Onion sends up the bome-dry style of US newspapers so well that even a British journalist has been caught out by one of its spoofs. Sam Leith reports

YESTERDAY, attentive readers of the Guardian Diary will have seen a rare but significant instance of a biter bit. The paper's diarist Matthew Norman - himself a black-belt in the arts of hoax and wind-up - had published as fact a spoof report from the American satirical newspaper The Onion.

Featuring a fictional type-designers' awards ceremony, it quoted the winner as saying: "A million thanks to all the wonderful folks in the font community who believed in Helvetica Bold Oblique."

It's easy to sympathise. The Onion sends up the bone-dry, deadpan style of American newspapers with such precision that, at a quick glance, its spoof stories could have come straight from the pages of the New York Times.

Started in 1988 as a college bog-sheet at the University of Wisconsin, The Onion now distributes its print edition in four US cities - its hometown of Madison, as well as Denver, Chicago and Milwaukee - and sells more than 200,000 copies. A New York edition is being launched at the end of the month, and San Francisco has been targeted for next year.

Britons are more likely to read its online edition - www.theonion.com - which attracts four million visitors a month and dominates the humour category of the annual Webbies (internet awards) in the same way that The Daily Telegraph's Matt Pritchett triumphs whenever prizes are given for pocket cartoons.

It is howlingly, weepingly, achingly funny. Reluctant though certain Britons will be to admit it, Americans cannot only do satire, but they can do it better than us. Though The Onion has strong similarities to the spoof news reports on the funnies pages of Private Eye, it gains from the solemnity of the newspaper culture in which it works.

The headlines - some whimsical, some vinegary with liberal disaffection - have been a particular pleasure: "Nation's Whites Eagerly Await Windows '95 Launch," "Psychiatrist Cures Patient," "Man in headlock only wanted to party," "Sudanese 14-year-old has mid-life crisis."

During the American elections, the paper ran a now-celebrated story headlined "Bush Reaches Out To Hispanic Community With Generous Tip". The intro read: "Bush extended the hand of friendship to the nation's Hispanic community after leaving a larger-than-customary tip for waiter Ramon Gonzalez after eating at La Galeria, a trendy Chula Vista Bistro."

The eight-strong writing staff of The Onion, who range in age from 29 to 34, are Generation X-ers who could have walked straight out of a Kevin Smith movie. Their current headline writer, Todd Hanson, used to be a dishwasher and convenience store clerk. Another was recruited from the local sandwich shop.

When, in April this year, they folded tent in Wisconsin and moved their HQ to smart new offices in an upmarket part of New York, the first furniture they installed was a ping-pong table and table-football.

This isn't to say that they aren't financially savvy. The business, which is half-owned by its CEO Pete Haise, employs around 120 people. In the media section of Onion's website, browsers will find a slick series of pages briefing potential advertisers about the attractive demographics of the site's readership.

Already, there have been two highly successful spin-off books: The Onion's Finest News Reporting and Our Dumb Century. The latter, not unlike the Sun's important millennial retrospective Hold Ye Front Page, is a series of newspaper front pages following Twentieth Century history.

Meanwhile, Miramax has bought "first-look" options on their material. The Onion's editor-in-chief, Rob Siegel, says that movie deals for Canadian Girlfriend Unsubstantiated and 10th Circle Added to Rapidly Expanding Hell, are "in the cocktail-party stage".

However big it becomes, one mystery is likely to remain: why it's called The Onion. "It's highly debated," says senior staff writer Carol Kolb. "There's one theory that an "onion" was newspaper slang for a juicy story with many layers. I think, in reality, they were just looking for a dumb name."

-- Anonymous, September 06, 2001

Answers

I'll vote for the dumb name idea. Followed by the curious aptness of it.

-- Anonymous, September 07, 2001