Unraveling the onion

I always like it when an article reveals the inner workings of an organization in a detailed, lucid style. And this is what this article does. Apparently, running a satirical newspaper requires much more work than I expected. Quoting the head writer of the onion: "We spend hundreds of hours in the room deconstructing the jokes. I don’t think there’s anything comparable to the amount of material we generate and reject just to come up with the week’s headlines.”

"The staff devotes the first two days of every week to composing headlines, then assigns the articles that will run beneath them and provide a body of supporting jokes." I guess the way you compose and compile the news depends on what you want your paper to do for the public. This is reminiscent of Hearst and Pulitzer's newspapers.

I liked the article's structure and diction, they were the appropriate vehicle for the content. The wording seemed very casual, and the author's insertion of large amounts of dialogue put me there, around the table with the editors and writers.