---
description: The satirical news organization uses a mix of stock photos with its own imagery
title: How The Onion Covers Politics
image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltee3dcbf33ba3b683/69888e34196cf42bb503b167/the-onion-satirizes-politics-05.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9
---
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# How _The Onion_ Covers Politics
by
[Myles Little](/author/myles-little/)
## Myles Little
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Apr 27, 2016 8:00 AM CUT
Biden To Cool His Heels In Mexico For A While August 31, 2010
Biden To Cool His Heels In Mexico For A While August 31, 2010The Onion
by
[Myles Little](/author/myles-little/)
## Myles Little
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Apr 27, 2016 8:00 AM CUT
The Onion, first published in 1988, has been a campus rag, a newspaper, a website, even a feature length film.
Left-leaning, it skewers the media, politics, consumer culture, and more. It is bleak ([World Death Rate Holding Steady at 100 Percent](http://www.theonion.com/article/world-death-rate-holding-steady-at-100-percent-1670 "undefined")), it is absurd ([Archaeological Dig Uncovers Ancient Race Of Skeleton People](http://www.theonion.com/article/archaeological-dig-uncovers-ancient-race-of-skelet-1268 "undefined")), it is, in its own words, “the most accurate, most trusted, and most infallible publication humankind has ever known”. The Washington Post declared it “an epic literature of American alienation writ small, and in arid AP-style prose.”
With the U.S. presidential election looming, TIME Lightbox looks back on The Onion’s peerless political coverage through the years.
Begun as a free print newspaper on the campus of the University of Wisconsin at Madison by students Tim Keck and Chris Johnson, The Onion was soon sold and spread to several more cities. The website began in 1996 (to the concern of some who thought the success of the parody depended on hewing as closely as possible to its print inspiration). But ultimately, both print and digital editions blossomed. At its peak, print was distributed in 16 markets, and the site reached more than 100 million pageviews per month.
Paradoxically, one of most beloved features of The Onion’s work is its dry tone ([Report Finds Drug Tunnels Most Intact Transport Infrastructure In U.S.](http://www.theonion.com/article/report-finds-drug-tunnels-most-intact-transport-in-50591 "undefined")). As former editor Robert Siegel [told](http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/21/entertainment/ca-39363 "undefined") the Los Angeles _Times_, “A part of the humor is in the tension between what is being said and how it’s being said. If you take something you wouldn’t normally read in a newspaper, and write it in that hack, deadpan AP style without ever winking, there’s a comedic tension, a juxtaposition at work that makes it funny.”
In fact, The Onion apes every newspaper cliche imaginable: the stock ticker, the op-eds (this one [written](http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/hey-you-got-something-to-eat-11163 "undefined") by a goat), the fancy-sounding Latin motto “Tu Stultus Es” (which actually means “you’re an idiot”). It’s gotten in on the sponsored content game: both skewering it ([SPONSORED: The Taliban Is A Vibrant And Thriving Political Movement](http://www.theonion.com/article/sponsored-the-taliban-is-a-vibrant-and-thriving-po-30910 "undefined")) and participating, very lucratively, in it.
In fact, fake Onion articles have gotten recirculated by real news outlets around the world. When it declared the rotund North Korean leader Kim Jong Un the “sexiest man alive”, a newspaper in China ran a 55-photo spread in celebration.
Eric Ervine, The Onion’s Art Director, and his team use both straightforward stock imagery from sources like Getty Images and their own photographs, and they create combinations of both. They will snag people from around the office to act as body doubles for the camera, and then photoshop the head of whichever celebrity is appropriate for the story. (Ervine says his own body has been in almost a thousand photo-illustrations). But in general, he says, “we always try to lean towards reality. If we can’t avoid using Photoshop we will. If there’s ever a chance to just put everything in camera, that’s what we’ll do. The human mind can identify something that looks fake from a mile away. We don’t just make funny pictures,” Ervine says, “we make delicate portraits of absurdity.”
But no matter how sharp or incisive the final product is, the editors and writers are known for downplaying their influence beyond the world of humor. Cole Bolton, editor in chief of The Onion has described himself as merely a comedian first, a satirist second, and a social commentator third.
Onion writer Todd Hanson [told](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/07/AR2008110701942.html "undefined") the Washington _Post_, “we hear it a lot these days, this idea that ‘Colbert’ and ‘The Daily Show’ and The Onion have risen to the challenge of speaking truth to power. I think maybe we made some people feel better, that there was this plucky little voice dissenting in the media wilderness, but I don’t think it’s really affecting elections. We were going after Bush right after 9/11\. He still won in 2004.”
As Hanson admits, “I wouldn’t say we have the broadest spectrum of political inclinations on our staff, but we’re not here to be a pal to liberals or to be a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party. We’re here to make fun of things that are dumb.”
While Saturday Night Live and countless other comedians struck gold spoofing George W. Bush, The Onion found him impossible. “It’s been a nightmare trying to figure out what to do with him,” contributor Joe Garden told the Washington _Post_ in 2008.
And Trump, Ervine tells TIME, “it’s really actually hard, because we don’t go for low-hanging fruit. He’s just so absurd that making any comment on it just seems—it doesn’t strike. It would cheapen the overall quality of what we do if we lowered ourselves to that. When things are really this nuts, we have to turn the microscope on even higher to find the sharper wit.”
One politician The Onion can’t seem to get enough of is Joe Biden. But the writers have a curious take on him, one that is completely unrecognizable to anyone who has read about the man. “Diamond Joe” writes bad checks, washes his muscle car shirtless in front of the White House, and has been forcibly ejected from Dave & Buster’s multiple times. It was a risky move for the writers to reshape the real Biden’s family-man persona into a straight-up dirtbag, but one that paid off. (The Onion claims the real Biden loves the caricature…but The Onion claims a lot of things.)
In a time when it’s increasingly difficult to tell reality from parody—when, in fact, there is a whole website devoted to real news headlines that sound like The Onion’s—where does America’s Finest News Source™ go from here?
**_Myles Little_** _is a senior photo editor at TIME._
Ape Appointed Banana Czar March 19, 1997 The Onion
Vote, Voter Wasted November 8, 2000 The Onion
McCain Gives Up JCPenney Catalog-Modeling Job May 28, 2003 The Onion
Cheney Regrets Buying Bush Laser Pointer August 6, 2003 The Onion
Bush Caught In One of His Own Terror Traps May 25, 2005 The Onion
UN Quietly Pushed Into East River July 27, 2005 The Onion
Joe Biden Shows Up To Inauguration With Ponytail January 20, 2009 The Onion
Biden To Cool His Heels In Mexico For A While August 31, 2010 The Onion
Obama Waiting For Perfect Moment To Walk By White House Tour Group March 13, 2012 The Onion
'Captain Actual America' Overweight, Hopelessly In Debt July 16, 2012 The Onion
Biden Scores 800 Feet Of Copper Wire January 24, 2013 The Onion
Congress Reluctant To Cut Funding For Tank That Just Spins Around and Self-Destructs May 22, 2014 The Onion
Artifacts Discovered Buried in Washington, D.C. Suggest Humans Once Passed Laws There September 18, 2014 The Onion
Obama Still Hasn't Figured Out How To Adjust Height Of Oval Office Desk Chair May 22, 2015 The Onion
Tanned, Exquisitely Coiffed Bernie Sanders Tells Supporters Corporations Actually Have A Lot To Offer June 5, 2015 The Onion
Huckabee Campaign Suspended After Candidate Trapped In Briar Patch August 14, 2015 The Onion
Extension Cord On Stage Steals Spotlight From Jeb Bush During Campaign Rally September 18, 2015 The Onion
Pope Francis Reverses Position on Capitalism After Seeing Wide Variety of American Oreos September 22, 2015 The Onion
Study Finds Controlled Washington, D.C. Wildfires Crucial For Restoring Healthy Political Environment November 3, 2015 The Onion
Ben Carson Slowly Floats Away from Earth March 4, 2016 The Onion
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