The Onion Cooks Up a Newscast

Tue., Mar. 27, 2007 7:12 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

For those people looking to pack a little more topical absurdity into their lives, the fake news purveyors over at The Onion have answered the question of what to do when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert sign off for the night.

The spoof-happy newspaper has spawned the Onion News Network, or ONN, an online video newscast already billing itself as "the undisputed leader in 24-hour news."

Founded in December 1882 (Dewar's whiskey has been a proud sponsor since 1898), boasting channels in 171 languages and available in 4.2 billion households in 811 countries, according to the historical information available on the ONN Website, the Onion boasts in an online promo that "you'll never read again."

Seriously, just try looking in the New York Times for the story about President Bush calling up Civil War re-enactors for duty in Iraq. (Statistics show that 98 percent of them will not be leaving a significant other at home…)

The new site debuted Tuesday and so far three clips are available for viewing under the guise that the century-old ONN is just finally being to digitize its vast archives.

"Video clips online have reached a critical mass," Onion editor in chief Scott Dikkers told Reuters. "It's a new medium that's crying out to be parodied, and the Onion is the perfect vehicle for it."

While the intro videos are current event-related—Iraq war, immigration and Condoleezza Rice's latest trip to the Middle East all get skewered—future offerings will include retro-looking newsreels and audio from early 20th century-era (fake) radio reports.

"Our competitors are MSNBC and CNN," Sean Mills, president of the company that runs the Onion, said about the new venture, billed as "faster, harder, scarier and all-knowing."

In contrast to satirical television newscasts such as The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update," "there's no studio audience and no one's in on the joke," Mills said. "What we are trying to create is a broadcast-quality newscast on the Internet."

Already in to help get the word out are Apple, which will offer podcasts of ONN clips via its iTunes Music Store, cell phone-maker Helio and TiVo. The Onion is also looking into partnerships with fellow hipsters YouTube, Joost and MySpace to split ad revenue, considering its likely that at least some of the Onion's original content will end up on one or all of those already established video-sharing sites.

Current sponsors include Dewar's, which is currently running silent film-style ads on ONN in keeping with the "since 1898" premise, Hyundai and Red Stripe Beer.

The Onion is currently published online and in a weekly print edition available in select U.S. locales, including Los Angeles, New York, Milwaukee and Denver. In early April, the paper will expand into Washington, bringing its circulation to a little more than 700,000.