“Subsequent Up: 911 Operator Calmly Talks Girl By way of Macarena,” steered one author, as his co-workers cackled. One other: “JD Vance Doubles Down on Controversial Criticism of Childless Youngsters.”
The headlines — all 52 of them — had been fully pretend, potential fodder for the satirical information website.However the jokesters behind these tales are additionally exhausting at work on a real experiment within the media enterprise, one so counterintuitive that apparently it might have been revealed in The Onion.
This week, The Onion started distributing a print version for the primary time in additional than a decade and can quickly ship it month-to-month to everybody who subscribes to its website. The transfer is a throwback to the publication’s roots as a campus weekly within the late Nineteen Eighties.
However it is usually emblematic of a rising development within the media business — attempting new methods to draw and retain digital subscribers.
The Onion is not any stranger to the difficulties that face the publishing enterprise. Its headlines have tracked the tumult within the media business over the previous a number of years, even sometimes poking enjoyable at itself:
The Onion: ‘Gentle-mannered reporter instantly transforms into unbelievable unemployed man’
The print version is a part of quite a lot of perks that the corporate plans to supply on-line subscribers, who pay $5 a month, mentioned Ben Collins, the CEO of The Onion’s guardian firm, World Tetrahedron. The corporate plans to supply invitations to reside occasions, entry to The Onion’s archive of bodily papers and sponsorship of formidable editorial initiatives, reminiscent of a video titled “The Excellent One-Pot, Six-Pan, 10-Wok, 25-Baking-Sheet Dinner,” Collins mentioned.
“Are you aware how a lot 10 woks price nowadays?” he requested. “It is not fairly.”
The Onion hopes to start turning a revenue later this 12 months with the assistance of these subscription add-ons, mentioned Collins, whose firm took over the publication in April.
On the similar time, The Onion is decreasing its reliance on sure sorts of promoting. A month in the past, it stopped operating digital advertisements from the corporate Taboola, a purveyor of attention-grabbing hyperlinks. A lot of the advertisements on this month’s print version — for Ashley Madison, WeWork and Chick-fil-A — are pretend, however there are some real promotions for The Onion. One of many advertisements: “It is That Sweater You Clicked On As soon as. We Discovered a Strategy to Comply with You Into Print Media, Too.”
The Onion: ‘Main shift in media panorama happens each 6 seconds’
Over the previous 10 years, The Onion has modified fingers thrice. It was purchased by Spanish-language tv firm Univision, digital writer G/O Media and, this 12 months, World Tetrahedron. Alongside the way in which, there have been layoffs, tense contract negotiations and even the sale of The Onion’s sister website, The AV Membership.
However its 15 employees members are hoping the worst is behind them. Below the proprietor of World Tetrahedron, Jeff Lawson, a co-founder of the tech firm Twilio, the publication has loved a comparatively calm interval.
Lawson mentioned he had began joking with mates about shopping for The Onion after Marc Benioff, the founding father of Salesforce, purchased Time journal in 2018. In early 2024, Lawson was launched to a bunch fascinated by shopping for The Onion, together with Collins; Leila Brillson, a former TikTok govt; and Danielle Strle, a product improvement govt.
“I mentioned, ‘I’ve $600 — who needs to assist me purchase this?'” Collins mentioned. He mentioned he was fortunate to be launched to Lawson, “the one common individual in Silicon Valley.”
Lawson mentioned he hoped to personal The Onion for the remainder of his life. The enterprise could possibly be rotated, he mentioned, if it targeted first on satisfying its paying prospects.
Lawson mentioned he hadn’t mentioned his buy of The Onion with Elon Musk — the Tesla CEO, who at one level mentioned a bid for the location — regardless of their shared love of satire.
“Unbelievably, not all Silicon Valley individuals hand around in an evil mountainside lair,” Lawson mentioned.
The Onion: ‘Individuals demand new type of media to bridge leisure hole whereas wanting from laptop computer to telephone’
The Onion will hand out its new print version subsequent week on the Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago — the place The Onion is predicated — although Collins joked that the publication was not credentialed to cowl the occasion.
The most important inflow of influential journalists will make it an ideal alternative to debut the print version, mentioned Jordan LaFlure, The Onion’s govt editor.
LaFlure mentioned he hoped the print newspaper would attain a youthful era of shoppers who had already begun to indicate some affinity for analog substitutes of digital merchandise.
“I believe for a similar purpose that 18-year-old youngsters are shopping for Taylor Swift on vinyl,” LaFlure mentioned, “we are able to introduce those self same youngsters to the notion {that a} print publication is a a lot richer solution to devour media.”
The employees would not appear to share that enthusiasm for all publications. One of many front-page headlines in The Onion this week: “New York Occasions to Stop Publication.”
