The Onion
Satirical weekly newspaper that was founded in 1988 by two juniors at the University of Wisconsin, Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson, who distributed a handful of copies to their friends around the Madison area. Today the Onion boasts more than three million regular readers nationwide and attributes its success to “fearless reporting and scathing commentary.” Consider, for instance, these Onion headlines: “Cases of Glitter Lung on the Rise among Elementary-School Art Teachers,” “Study Reveals Pittsburgh Unprepared for Full-Scale Zombie Attack,” “Supreme Court Mistakenly Used Belgium’s Constitution for Last 3 Rulings.” Such satire has won the Onion a Thurber Prize for American Humor and a handful of Webby Awards. Several collections of its articles have made the New York Times best-seller list, including Ad Nauseam (2003) and Our Dumb World (2007).