Funny Because It's True
Discover the real truth behind the original fake news with this in-depth history of beloved humor publication, The Onion. In 1988, a band of University of Wisconsin–Madison undergrads and dropouts began publishing a free weekly newspaper with no editorial stance other than “You Are Dumb.” Just wanting to make a few bucks, they wound up becoming the bedrock of modern satire over the course of twenty years, changing the way we consume both our comedy and our news. The Onion served as a hilarious and brutally perceptive satire of the absurdity and horrors of late twentieth-century American life and grew into a global phenomenon.
Now, for the first time, the full history of the publication is told by one of its original staffers, author and historian Christine Wenc. Through dozens of interviews, Wenc charts The Onion’s rise, its position as one of the first online humor sites, and the way it influenced television programs like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Funny Because It’s True peels back the layers to reveal how a group of young misfits from flyover country unintentionally created a cultural phenomenon.
In conversation with Steve Paulson.
Christine Wenc
Christine Wenc is an independent public historian who’s played central roles in highly regarded projects for Harvard University, the National Library of Medicine and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She’s also a member of the literary arts team at Arts + Literature Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, and an editor at the University of Wisconsin. Back in the day, she was the editor-in-chief of The Stranger, copy-editor/writer/illustrator on the original staff of The Onion, as well as a news announcer on Wisconsin Public Radio. Her work has been published in The Stranger, The Onion, Exquisite Corpse, and Alternet. She grew up in rural Spring Green, Wisconsin.