“America’s Finest News Source” finds itself reduced to a shell of the first-rate satirical outlet it once was. The Onion's degeneration into a sham of plagiaristic deceit was on display for all to see last week when the fading humor brand published a brief article on the cancellation of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative.
While The Onion’s take on Mrs. Obama’s embarrassingly ineffective effort to combat the obesity crisis plaguing America's youth was basically amusing, the once-proud entertainment pacesetter left out one crucial fact: the idea was stolen from a much better story published more than two years ago on liberal news blog Daily Kos.
“It was really good,” Onion President Mike McAvoy said of the original satire published in April of 2011, “We used to produce content like that. We know good stuff when we see it, and so maybe we commandeered it. But for a good cause.”
The Onion’s meteoric rise to prominence during the 1990s and initial years of the new millenium was a ride that took the publication from its bucolic Wisconsin roots all the way to the bright lights of Manhattan. But it was in New York City the publication was reminded what goes up, must come down.
Fallen circulation; the murder-suicide when Onion co-founder Tim Keck shot and killed his old partner, co-founder Christopher Johnson, over an Uno card game; and competition from The Fox News Channel left The Onion in dire straits.
At the time few could have foreseen the respected parody publication ever sinking to intellectual theft, but then an intern stumbled upon the original article mocking Mrs. Obama’s misguided attempt to bring American waistlines under control.
“[T]he more I learn of our eating and exercise habits, the more certain I am that it's long past time to throw in the towel. I can't believe I ever thought I could help you," Mrs. Obama told Daily Kos in April of 2011, and when the Onion intern shared it with CEO Mike Hannah, the decision was made to steal it, continuing The Onion’s plummet to irrelevance.
“The abject failure of The Onion News Network was plainly when The Onion jumped the shark,” said former editorial manager Chet Clem, who left the company in controversy when he was dispatched from Onion headquarters in 2007 after a number of male interns filed sexual harassment complaints. Though roundly agreed Clem is hung like a horse, it made for an untenable newsroom and he was fired.
"Swear to god, the pervert truly believed Naked Tuesday would catch on," said current Onion CEO Steve Hannah, who relocated The Onion to Chicago, Ill., in 2012, for financial reasons.
“We’re not having great success, and my brother said I could stay in his family’s basement back home in [Chicago suburb] Buffalo Grove, so it all came together,” Hannah said. “And with us really all about the Web now, Chicago is the last big city we’re still printing in, anyway.”
In recent years The Onion stopped distributing print editions in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and other cities. The print version is currently distributed in fewer than a dozen cities, primarily college towns including Austin, Tex., and Ann Arbor, Mich.
And while Onion leadership publically insist they are not worried about flagging Internet traffic, current company President David Schafer admitted there have been days when not a single page visit was recorded on www.theonion.com.
“Believe me, though, I’m a lot more worried about the government than on-line statistics,” Schafer said, in light of ongoing federal efforts to close The Onion. “If I get one more subpoena I swear I’m gonna sue somebody. You know that bastard Steve King is actually trying to restart the House Committee on Un-American Activities?”