Two staffers from satirical newspaper The Onion gave a
presentation at the University of Rochester’s Strong Auditorium Thursday night,
and not surprisingly, hilarity ensued. Head Writer Seth Reiss and Features
Editor Cole Bolton discussed the “history” (I use that term loosely) of The
Onion, some of the most famous headlines it has printed over the years, the
creative process that goes into an issue, and read some of the angry letters
received by the paper.

If laughter really is the best medicine, the people in the
audience got a heavy dose. The event seemed more like a stand-up comedy show
than anything else, but it was also surprisingly educational. It was obvious
that the duo knew how to work a crowd, Reiss in particular, and it was not much
of a shocker when he said he worked in sketch comedy for several years.

The presentation had the same mentality as The Onion in general:
anything and everything is fair game. This was especially notable when a
section of the slideshow popped up revolving around famous people the newspaper
has had “killed” over the years. Among them: Mother Teresa and University of
Rochester president Joel Seligman, which easily drew the best response from the
mostly student-filled crowd. They also showed charts ranking their journalistic
integrity versus other publications such as The New York Times, and even
University of Rochester’s campus publication The Campus Times. (Not
surprisingly, The Onion was ranked with a perfect score, while the other papers
were given a sliver of its integrity.)

One of my personal favorite segments from show was when Reiss and
Bolton did a reading of Neil Armstrong’s moon landing, which was filled with
more four-letter words than the average person probably hears in a week.

Perhaps the best thing that was discussed was how The Onion has
fooled other news outlets around the world numerous times into thinking their
stories are real, and subsequently running the satirical stories. Stories like
the $8 billion Abortionplex, and a frustrated Barack Obama writing the entire
nation a rambling 75,000 e-mail were just a few that have duped big names such
as Fox News over the years.

While the Strong Auditorium was mostly filled with laughs during
the presentation, things did take a more serious turn during the Q & A
session afterwards. After somebody asked about the fallout from the Twitter
incident at this year’s Oscars, in which the paper referred to 9-year-old
nominee Quvenzhane Wallis with an incredibly crude term, Reiss was hesitant to
jump into it. But Bolton kept the issue alive and it was discussed for several
minutes. This was probably the only span where the audience’s roaring laughter
was absent for more than a 30-second span. It was interesting to hear their side
of the story, because all you really heard from The Onion before was their
apology.

This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2013.