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How the Onion Writes Headlines

New book Our Front Pages explores the evolution

By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff

Posted Nov 3, 2009 1:02 PM CST
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(Newser) – The Onion's writers have a backward way of generating stories: They come up with the headlines first. The staff devotes the first two days of each week to rejecting headlines like “Quick and Painless Overthrow of Taliban Enters Eighth Year” in favor of “US Continues Quagmire-Building Effort in Afghanistan.” New book Our Front Pages explores the evolution of such heads over the paper’s 21-year history; New York Times reporter Eric Konigsberg took a peek at it, and the operation. Fun tidbits:

  • Early headlines are decidedly clownish (“Depressed? Try Liposuction on that Pesky Head”), but in 2001—the year the paper moved from Wisconsin to New York—the headlines took on “more of a New York Times-Washington Post kind of tone—sober, important,” the editor says.
  • The staff meeting consists of 10 white guys, "most in glasses, about half wearing T-shirts with something satirical printed on them, and at least 60% of them with facial hair."
  • Office secretary Ellie Kemper worked there; other writers have moved on to the Daily Show, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, and Comedy Central, among other destinations.

The cover of The Onion's Our Front Pages is shown.
The cover of The Onion's "Our Front Pages" is shown.   (Amazon.com)
A copy of the Onion is seen in a news rack May 5, 2009 in San Francisco, California.
A copy of the Onion is seen in a news rack May 5, 2009 in San Francisco, California.   (Getty Images)
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That reminds me too much of ‘Man Who Thought He’d Lost All Hope Loses Last Additional Bit of Hope He Didn’t Even Know He Still Had.'
- Todd Hanson, story editor, on the headline 'Man Surprised He Still Had Peg to Be Taken Down'

We spend hundreds of hours in the room deconstructing the jokes. I don’t think there’s anything comparable to the amount of material we generate and reject just to come up with the week’s headlines. - Dan Guterman, head writer

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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 6 comments
JoeQ
Nov 3, 2009 10:48 AM CST
My favorit Onion article of all time is: "Stephen Hawking Builds Robotic Exoskeleton". My favorite line from it, "I see now that the curvature of space-time follows previously unmeasured vectors that I will need to recalibrate in my equations. Also, there appears to be some sort of trouble on the moon." http://www.theonion.com/conten...
cognitivefilter
Nov 3, 2009 9:32 AM CST
i get all of my news from the onion..
Sterling_Archer
Nov 3, 2009 8:00 AM CST
Is anyone else thinking that this is exactly how Faux News operates?

 
media • newspaper • satire • The Onion • headlines

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