onion see city hall london . the onion type satirical newspaper format website owner s onion inc. founder s tim keck christopher johnson editor cole bolton founded august 29 1988 ; 28 years ago 1988 08 29 madison wisconsin u.s. 1 ceased publication 2013 print headquarters chicago illinois u.s. website theonion.com onion inc. type subsidiary industry publishing genre comedy founded 1988 1988 madison wisconsin u.s. founder tim keck christopher johnson key people david schafer chairman mike mcavoy president & ceo kurt mueller coo 2 products the onion newspaper radio video books ; the a.v. club ; clickhole owner univision communications 40 % 3 number of employees 140 website www.theonion.com the onion is an american digital media company and news satire organization that publishes articles on international national and local news . based in chicago the company originated as a weekly print publication on august 29 1988 in madison wisconsin . 1 in the spring of 1996 the onion began publishing online . in 2007 the organization began publishing satirical news audio and video online as the onion news network . in 2013 the onion ceased publishing its print edition and launched onion labs an advertising agency . 4 5 the onion s articles cover current events both real and fictional satirizing the tone and format of traditional news organizations with stories editorials op ed pieces and man in the street interviews using a traditional news website layout and an editorial voice modeled after that of the associated press . the publication s humor often depends on presenting mundane everyday events as newsworthy surreal or alarming . in 1999 comedian bob odenkirk praised the publication stating it s the best comedy writing in the country and it has been since it started . 6 the onion also runs the a.v. club and clickhole . initially created in 1993 as a supplement to the parent publication the a.v. club is an entertainment and pop culture publication that contains interviews and reviews of newly released media and other weekly features . clickhole is a satirical website from the onion founded in 2014 that parodies websites such as buzzfeed and upworthy . contents 1 history 1.1 publication s name 1.2 madison 1988 2001 1.3 new york city 2001 2012 1.4 chicago 2012 present 1.5 print edition 1988 2013 2 regular features 3 editors and writers 4 books video film and audio 4.1 books 4.2 onion news network 4.3 youtube original programming 4.4 the onion movie 4.5 onion radio news 5 the onion s influence on the real world 5.1 taken seriously 5.2 as a political actor 5.3 controversies 5.3.1 u.s. presidential seal dispute 5.3.2 85th academy awards controversy 6 see also 7 references 8 external links history edit publication s name edit reportedly it was co founder chris johnson s uncle nells johnson who came up with the idea to name the paper the onion . people always ask questions about where the name the onion came from said former president sean mills in an interview with wikinews ; and when i recently asked co founder tim keck who was one of the founders he told me ... literally that his uncle said he should call it the onion when he saw him and chris johnson eating an onion sandwich . they had literally just cut up the onion and put it on bread . according to former editorial manager chet clem their food budget was so low when they started the paper that they were down to white bread and onions . this account was recently disputed by the current editor of the onion cole bolton during an event at the university of chicago . bolton called mills s account the dumbest explanation and asserted that it is likely wrong . according to bolton the most plausible explanation is that the onion was mocking a campus newsletter called the union . 7 8 9 madison 1988 2001 edit the onion was founded in 1988 in madison wisconsin by tim keck and christopher johnson students at the university of wisconsin . in 1988 scott dikkers the onion s longest serving editor in chief 1988 1999 2005 2008 joined the two person staff to draw comic strips . by issue three i was de facto editor . in 1989 keck and johnson sold it to dikkers and advertising sales manager peter haise for less than 20 000 although also quoted as 16 000 in the washington post and 19 000 in a 2003 business 2.0 article . after the sale founders keck and johnson became publishers of other similar alternative weeklies keck of the seattle weekly the stranger and johnson of the albuquerque weekly alibi . 10 11 12 13 14 15 in its early years the onion was successful in a number of university locations e.g. madison wisconsin champaign urbana illinois . originally the bottom three inches of the newspaper could be cut off for coupons to local establishments such as inexpensive student centered eateries and video rental stores . for a time the onion was primarily a hodgepodge of dikkers s cartoons spy magazine like satire and short fiction . 15 16 the june 16 1993 issue of the daily iowan ran a profile of dikkers in which it stated that dikkers still lives in madison spending about five hours a week on jim s journal and the rest of the time as co owner of a satirical newspaper called the onion . 17 in the november december 1994 issue of u. the national college magazine dikkers discussed the comedy castaways the onion s sketch comedy show which the publication hoped to pitch to nbc fox and hbo . i think what sets us apart is we ve intentionally formed a tightly knit group of funny performers said dikkers of the show and the two pilot episodes the publication had produced . 18 in the spring of 1996 ben karlin and dikkers collaborated with robert smigel and dana carvey to create four short news segments for the dana carvey show . bob odenkirk had showed me the onion about a year earlier and it jumped out at me as something completely original and great and i really wanted to use it on the show said smigel . while four fake news segments were recorded with stephen colbert performing as anchor only one of the segments actually aired . one of the missing segments was to prominently feature the onion headline mr. t to pity fool . 19 20 in 1996 the widely popular and unattributed dissemination of a december 1995 pre web article written by robert d. siegel titled clinton deploys vowels to bosnia 21 helped spur the creation of the onion s website www.theonion.com . the website allowed the onion to properly claim credit for that article and others that were being passed around in an unattributed form online in various forums usenet posts and mailing lists 22 and the publication received expanded global recognition as a result . 5 21 22 23 24 25 in a 2002 interview siegel described the difference between online website readership and the print publication 26 if you look at the breakdown of people who read the onion online it s like microsoft dell computers the department of justice and then like university of wisconsin . so it s a combination of students and pretty impressive people . i get the feeling that the print version is read by people hanging out in bars . 5 21 22 23 24 25 in the fall of 1996 karlin who had been a writer editor for the publication since graduating from the university of wisconsin in 1993 moved to los angeles and joined other former onion staffers to create a news parody television pilot titled deadline now for the fox network . while the 15 minute pilot which was completed in 1997 was never picked up as a series for production its creation lead to steady writing work for karlin and other former onion staffers such as writing some episodes of space ghost coast to coast on the cartoon network . in the wake of karlin s departure long time staff writer robert siegel 27 assumed the publication s duties as editor of the publication . 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 sometime after the onion appeared online in 1996 the publication was threatened with a lawsuit from janet jackson because of the article dying boy gets wish to pork janet jackson . we were very nearly sued out of existence by janet jackson said siegel adding that in the past he was forbidden to talk about the legal matter and the celebrity involved . 34 35 36 on january 27 1998 mtv premiered virtual bill a collaboration between writers of the onion and 3 d character studio protozoa . the titular virtual bill character was a quasi realistic cgi version of bill clinton created by studio protozoa who introduced music videos and told jokes written by the staff of the onion . the voice of virtual bill was provided by then editor dikkers . after the initial premiere virtual bill returned to mtv on december 17 1998 with another tv special and an interactive web special produced by pulse that ported the 3d data into a web compatible format using pulse s proprietary plug in . 37 38 39 40 41 in january 1999 when jon stewart became the host of the daily show he tapped former onion writer editor karlin to be head writer of the newly restructured show . he had heard about this group of onion people in l.a. and in a weird way i was the de facto ringleader of our group in l.a. i came to new york . jon and i connected . it was kind of like a slightly awkward but successful first date . when i got back to los angeles they offered me the head writer job . 28 29 30 31 32 from march 3 to march 7 1999 writers and editors of the onion attended u.s. comedy arts festival in aspen colorado in part to promote the forthcoming our dumb century anthology and were met with effusive praise for their work from notable comedians such as conan o brien dave foley and dave thomas as well as cartoonist peter bagge and musician andy prieboy . 23 42 on march 18 1999 the onion s website won its first webby award in the category of humor . 43 44 on march 23 1999 the onion s first fully original book our dumb century was released . the book featured mocked up newspaper front pages from the entire 20th century presented under the premise that the publication had been continuously in print since before 1900 . 45 46 47 in the wake of the book s success networks such as hbo and nbc were in talks to bring the onion to tv with a special based on our dumb century . 15 regardless of the nearly two years of work spent on conceiving and producing our dumb century the writers only received bonuses of a few thousand dollars despite the fact that the two book publishing deal netted the onion 450 000 . 15 45 46 47 in april 2000 dreamworks studios optioned two stories from the satirical newspaper canadian girlfriend unsubstantiated which was to be written by former onion editor and writer rich dahm and tenth circle added to rapidly growing hell with an eye towards producing the later as a family comedy . the story is so dark and hate filled i was shocked said head writer todd hanson . it s like an onion joke . i mean what are they going to do add a sickly but adorable moppet added editor robert siegel . dreamworks planned for the finished tenth circle added to rapidly growing hell to involve animation as well as musical singalongs . 48 49 50 51 in june 2000 writers