Its articles comment in todays cases, each rattling & imagined (an case of the latter: "All Americans Issued Life Jackets for Some Reason"). It parodies traditional newspaper features & styles. the paper typically reports around everyday cases in a yellow manner ("Area Man Confounded by Buffet Procedure"). Obsession by owning fame & celebrity come ofttimes satirized.

Regular features include: The Onion The.V. Club, the straightforward however such as-minded amusement segment; "STATshot", an illustrated technical indicator shot which parodies "USA Today Snapshots"; The "Infograph" (the.k.the. "Infographic"), by using the bulleted listing of things in the theme; Point-Contrast; Random & outlandish editorials; Cynical horoscopes; "The ONION in History": a front document produced in the look of newspapers of an earliest era, satirizing that sooner style & content (which are actually 100% taken from either the book "Our Dumb Century"); "In the News" exposure & caption by owning there is no concomitant story (like "Frederick's of Anchorage Debuts Crotchless Long Underwear", National Association Advances Colored Person"); and "What Do You Believe?", a survey showing photos of the same six people, although their names and professions change every week. One of them is always a "systems analyst."

The newspaper was revamped on August 31, 2005, which changed the layout of the website homepage. As well: "What Do You Believe?" became "Western Voices", with the question updated daily, and only three responders each day "In the News" was retitled "From either a Print Edition" A daily fictional stock market analysis titled "Stock Keep an eye on", a web poll titled "QuickPoll", and "National News Highlights" of three regional stories, were added Jackie Harvey was given his own blog

The staff of the Onion have also produced numerous books, including Our Dumb Century and Dispatches from the Tenth Circle.

Reporters and editors
''The Onion's fictional editor is T. Herman Zweibel (Zwiebel'' is German for onion), who has "held the position since 1901" and is rather insane; the real editor is currently Scott Dikkers, the managing editor is Peter Koechley, and the current writing staff comprises assistant editor Amie Barrodale, and writers Todd Hanson, Maria Schneider, John Krewson, Joe Garden, and Chris Karwowski, as well as the graphics work of Mike Loew and Chad Nackers. Past writers have included Max Cannon, Rich Dahm, Tim Harrod, David Javerbaum, Carol Kolb, Robert Siegel, and Jack Szwergold.

Each issue features columns by (fictional) regular and guest writers. The regular contributors include: Jim Anchower, a slacker and stoner with a different job every few weeks, whose musical tastes are stuck in 1970s rock and roll Larry Groznic, a dweeb with an obsession for subcultural fandoms Herbert Kornfeld, Accounts Receivable Supervisor, a white man with a boring desk job who speaks in gangtsa rapisms and ebonics Smoove B, a smooth talking ladies' man. His columns are written about potential dates. He is known for going into extremely detailed paragraphs about his planned dates, and then adding a short, non-detailed sentence as an afterthought. He always wants to have the best of everything for his dates. Jean Teasdale, an overweight woman obsessed with cuteness. Jackie Harvey, a ridiculously uninformed media critic who writes the column The Outside Scoop.

History
The Onion was founded in 1988 and originally published in Madison, Wisconsin by two juniors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson; they sold it to colleagues the following year. The Onion remained a regional success until it began its website in 1996.

As of 2004 the paper's founders are publishers of other weeklies: Keck of the Seattle weekly The Stranger and Johnson of Albuquerque's Weekly Alibi.

In late August 2005, The Onion's companion website relaunched in a new design. Simultaneously The Onion discontinued their Premium Service which charged readers a substantial fee for additional content and vintage archives. This brings The Onion back to the open state it was in prior to April 2004 when the restrictive move towards a Premium Service was first initiated.

The Onion and the real world
In 1998, controversial minister Fred Phelps posted the Onion article ''[http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28970 '98 Homosexual-recruitment drive nearing goal] on his God Hates Fags website as proof that homosexuals were indeed actively trying to get straight people to join their ranks.

Just after the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, when the future President remained undetermined, the Onion published a story titled [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28068 Bush or Gore: "A New Era Dawns"] which parodied the similarities between the two politicians. The noteworthiness of this story was largely a matter of luck: the paper went to press election night, before the contested election results which led to Bush v. Gore. As the recount process unfolded, the Onion published a satirical issue reporting [http://www.theonion.com/content/index/3641 chaos in America], in which Serbia [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38646 sent peacekeepers to the U.S. to introduce democracy and protect their interests in the region], and Bill Clinton declared himself dictator for life.

The Onion's [http://www.theonion.com/content/index/3734 coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks] less than two weeks following the attacks was one of the earliest satirical reactions to those attacks, and was considered for a Pulitzer Prize.

On June 7, 2002, Reuters reported that the Beijing Evening News republished, in the international news page of its June 3 edition, translated portions of [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27828 Congress Threatens To Leave D.C. Unless New Capitol Is Built] (they were apparently unaware of The Onion'''s satirical nature). The story discusses the U.S. Congress's threats to leave Washington for Memphis, Tennessee or Charlotte, North Carolina unless Washington, DC built them a new Capitol building with a retractable dome. The article is a parody of U.S. sports franchises' threats to leave their home city unless new stadiums are built for them. The Evening News is Beijing's most popular newspaper, claiming a circulation of 1.25 million.

In late March 2004, Deborah Norville of MSNBC presented as genuine an article entitled [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32797 Study: 58 Percent Of U.S. Exercise Televised]. [http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/8266998.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp]

Columnist Ellen Makkai and others who believe the Harry Potter books recruit children to Satanism have also been taken in by the Onion's satire, using quotes from an Onion article as evidence for their claims. [http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/potter.htm] [http://web.archive.org/web/20011130173041/http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=ema]

Recently, an article from The Onion appeared on the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition test, in which students were asked to write an essay analyzing its use of satire.[http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/ap/students/english/ap05_frq_english_lang.pdf]

Wikipedia References

In November 2004, fictional columnist Larry Groznic opines, "I Must Dissent By owning A Wikipedia Entry For 'Weird Al' Yankovic". [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/37314] In September 2005, the Onion referenced Wikipedia with a short piece entitled, "Congress Abandons WikiConstitution". [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40990]

Influences

The Panini TV tie-in, Doctor Who Magazine recently ran a series of spoof news reports called The Space Time Telegraph in the style of The Onion. These pages always had the same picture of a devastated woman being comforted, but with different news headlines.

Books
''Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America's Finest News Source (1999, ISBN 0609804618) The Onion's Finest News Reporting, Volume 1 (2000, ISBN 0609804634) Dispatches from the Tenth Circle: The Best of The Onion (2001, ISBN 0609808346) The Onion Ad Nauseam: Complete News Archives Volume 13 (2002, ISBN 1400047242) "Relations Weaken Between U.S. & The children": The Onion Ad Nauseam: Complete News Archives Volume 14 (2003, ISBN 140004961X) "Fanfare for the Metropolitan area Human": The Onion Ad Nauseam Complete News Archives Volume 15 (2004, ISBN 1400054559) "Embedded inside United states of america": The Onion Ad Nauseam Complete News Archives Volume 16'' (2005, ISBN 1400054567)