Christine Wenc
Appearances
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
I would like to think that it has. I mean, the popularity of The Onion, what I would hope is some evidence of that. I mean, it was amazing to me that after nearly 40 years, The Onion is still popular. They were the first entity, I think, to reach a million followers on Blue Sky. And that headline in particular, I think, has made a big impact. It's been reported in the media multiple times.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
Even in the course of me writing the book, I had to update the number of times that it's been reprinted. I think right now it's at about 37 or 38. And, you know, it just points out the kind of ineffectualness of the public response to, you know, this serious societal problem and pointing out that we are the only country in which this is a problem. continuing issue.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
So if they're raising awareness of that, I think that's a really good thing.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
Well, you'd have to talk to them now. But I think, you know, I think the Onion, I mean, they have stepped over the line a few times. I won't. I think that's true. But I do think that they're on the side of area men and area women. You know, they're on the side of the people who are affected by the decisions made by people in power. And I think that as long as they're
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
Focused on that as the place where they're coming from and where their proper target should be, I think that gives them a decent ethical standing in most cases, I think.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
Yeah, I mean, I think people have asked me, you know, if The Onion could be, you know, become what it was. And I think that the competition now is so intense. There's just so much more than there was in the 80s and 90s even. So, yeah, breaking through all that, I think, is really difficult. So, yeah, when they started as paper, you know, they got a really strong local following.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
And then they were kind of people were subscribing to The Onion from all across the country. And then when they went online in 96, that's what really made them take off. So there is almost an irony in the history of The Onion because the Internet is what made them famous.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
But the Internet is also sort of what caused a lot of traditional media, including, you know, The Onion in a way, a lot of problems later on down the line.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
Well, my understanding is that the reception of that issue was extremely positive. They received thousands and thousands of emails and faxes. That's when people sent faxes praising the issue and telling The Onion that it really helped a lot of people laugh for the first time because it came out just two weeks after the attack.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
So I know the comedy community also held them in extremely high regard after that issue came out.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
Oh, there's so, so many. There's been thousands and thousands of headlines. I have a penchant for the science and the kind of silly ones. One I always liked is archaeologists. Archaeological dig uncovers ancient race of skeleton people, which you have to sort of think about it for a minute. There's a lot of good archaeology ones.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
But there are many, many funny and interesting and actually kind of sometimes sort of complicated and sad stories about people finding onion articles to be true, you know, thinking that it was real, which often happens when stories are kind of taken out of their context and seen in a different way. In the new context, sometimes it's hard to tell whether things are real or not.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
And so I think many, many people have been fooled by The Onion for sure.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
I was there early on when the staff was a bunch of 18 to 20-year-old undergraduate students, you know, working out of a dumpy student apartment on campus. And, you know, a lot of the paper was basically made up at, you know, 2 o'clock in the morning before it had to go to the printer a few hours later. But, you know, there was a lot of...
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
Being in a creative environment with a bunch of young people is very fun. There's all kinds of crazy, silly things happening all the time. That was gone by about the early 90s. But the 1990s staff, that was the group that really took The Onion to the next level, I think. They're the ones that made The Onion into a parody of USA Today, as people thought about it at the time. The newspaper, that is.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
A number of them became committed to satirizing from a Probably a progressive point of view, I would say. That became really important. That's when they also started really adhering to AP style. And they were the people that really created the Onion's sort of mature voice, if you could call it mature, in that period of time. So that was an amazing group of people.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
And a lot of those people are pictured on the front of the book, actually.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
Yeah, that was very, I thought I definitely laughed when I saw that I was, that I'd been, oh, wow, it's USA Today. Do they know about the whole thing?
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
Yeah, no, it's been so interesting to see how, you know, because part of what I did with the book is tell the story of media and the news since the 80s, as well as the history of The Onion, because The Onion has been satirizing and making fun of flaws and, and, I would say, in mainstream media, you know, since that time in a lot of different ways.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
And at the same time, The Onion has become very popular. So in a way, The Onion is kind of mainstream now, you know? I mean, it's... And a lot... Many people from The Onion have gone on to write for... You know, the people from The Onion were instrumental in creating The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. And all the late-night shows now have had Onion, people working for them.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
The Onion has kind of spread its influence... very broadly, but all kind of under the radar. And it's interesting because I also know that journalists love The Onion. They say The Onion says things that we wish we could say and we can't say. And so I find that really interesting too.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
So I think The Onion is aware that journalists actually love them, even though they're often making fun of what journalists do.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
Yeah, I mean, I started this book way back in 2018, right before the pandemic. And I just moved back to Madison from the East Coast, where I'd been for about 25 years. And this was during the first kind of just big discussion about fake news, like the bad fake news. So everybody was thinking about that and talking about that a lot. I was going back to my college town.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
So naturally, I started thinking about the stuff I did back in college. And so and then I also started wondering, you know, I wonder what the onion people think about all of this and the way, you know, the discourse has changed and the way that news has changed.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
So all of that really made me want to write the book, as well as learning for myself more about the history of news and journalism since that time. So, yeah, I did many, many, many interviews, talked to tons of people. And they were just that, you know, as you can see, you mentioned there's so many characters.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
There's so many just smart, funny and interesting and just weirdos, you know, that have been through the onion. And that's been it was very, very fun to meet a lot of those folks and talk to them. It was great.
The Excerpt
"Funny Because It's True" - New book reveals the beginnings of The Onion
That is a good question. The Onion's mission is to try to make the world a better place with its satire. And the point of satire is to kind of point out what the writers think is wrong and needs to be changed. And there's a lot of thought that the Onion writers put into, you know, what they decide to target as their satire. So I think that's definitely part of it.