The Onion

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.
Ceased publication	2013 (print)
Headquarters	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Website	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. 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.

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."

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 clickbait websites such as BuzzFeed and Upworthy.

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 ; "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 an 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.