Ah, the delightful scent of fresh ink. That tactile pleasure of holding a newspaper—crinkling it, folding it, and yes, maybe even using it to line the birdcage later. So imagine my joy when I heard The Onion—the satirical beacon of truth in a world gone mad—has returned to print. Yes, that’s right, print as in dead trees, people! Now, if The Onion can pull off this retro miracle, surely the rest of our beleaguered, click-bait riddled media can follow suit?
But alas, while The Onion is experimenting with actual paper (a radical innovation in 2024), the rest of the news industry seems more interested in turning into a glorified app store. I can see the logic, of course. If you can’t beat the kids at their TikToks and Instagrams, you might as well jump into the abyss with them, shedding your soul in the process. Or, if you’re particularly trendy, you could just let an algorithm write your articles. Who needs journalists when a machine can churn out headlines like “10 Reasons You Won’t Believe Number 7”?
One must applaud The Onion, however. Their decision to go to print at a time when most publications are busy moving to “digital-only” (read: corporate purgatory) is akin to a ship sailing straight into an iceberg with a hearty “full steam ahead!” But this is no reckless whim. No, The Onion has seen the future, and it involves good old-fashioned satire you can hold in your hands—without needing to scroll, swipe, or sit through another irritating cookie pop-up. How quaint!
This move, of course, stands in stark contrast to the fate of many of our local papers, which have been retreating to the digital realm like rats fleeing a sinking ship. “Print is dead,” they say. “Nobody wants to pay for actual news anymore,” they cry, while eyeing the latest Kardashian-Jenner gossip numbers like a Wall Street broker monitoring a spike in stock prices. Meanwhile, the actual readers—yes, the poor souls still interested in things like facts and quality writing—are left with an endless stream of thinly veiled advertorials and opinion pieces that barely rise above the level of an overheard conversation in a coffee shop.
Let us not forget one recent triumph of innovation—a digital publisher here in our fair land boldly produced a weekend print edition (yes, really). What a marvel that was! It made its valiant debut via a supermarket chain, where I’m sure it was nestled between the discount laundry detergent and an impulse-buy chocolate bar. Yet despite this prime real estate, I can’t seem to find it anymore. Could it be that the public’s appetite for sanctimonious editorials on climate change and earnest debates about tax reform has somehow waned? Who could have guessed!
But I digress. The real point is this: newspapers don’t have to die. They don’t have to go quietly into that good night, flinging themselves into the murky waters of the digital-only abyss. After all, The Onion has proven there’s life yet in the world of print. If a satirical rag can pull it off, then surely there’s hope for the rest? Or perhaps not, as one industry insider confided, “Why bother when algorithms can do it for us?”
Still, one can’t help but feel a little nostalgic. There’s something so… human about reading a real, physical newspaper. Something that algorithms, digital clicks, and listicles about “The Top 10 Things That’ll Make You Question Your Existence” just can’t replace. If The Onion’s print success is anything to go by, perhaps it’s time for other publishers to rethink their strategy. After all, if a coffee shop patron can chuckle over headlines like “Experts Admit They Don’t Know Why Jeff Bezos Bought the Moon,” why can’t a proper news outlet offer something similar?
Of course, there’s always the money question. You see, it turns out there’s a certain type of person who likes owning newspapers (and not just to impress their friends). Let’s call them “billionaires.” Jeff Bezos, that well-known space enthusiast, famously snapped up The Washington Post. And why not? It’s not like they were doing anything interesting with it before. Add in a few more media moguls with some spare change and voilà—maybe print isn’t dead, just waiting for a wealthy savior with questionable motives.
In the meantime, for the rest of us, it’s nice to know that The Onion remains in the hands of people who understand what a publication should be: funny, irreverent, and full of the kind of headlines that make you spit out your morning coffee. If they can keep the print flame alive, who knows? Perhaps one day, we’ll even see a Private Eye pullout section in The Financial Times. Stranger things have happened.
