So, You’d Like To Sell Your Print Issues Of The Onion?

308 pointsposted 11 hours ago
by mooreds
(theonion.com)

46 Comments

crtasm

11 hours ago

>Certain issues of The Onion newspaper are mysteriously missing from our 270-year archive, and you might be able to help us recover them.

twiss

10 hours ago

I know everything they write is potentially a joke but I got curious when The Onion was founded; apparently it was in 1988, 38 years ago :)

a012

9 hours ago

It sounds like their archive contains 270 year old contents, not that they’re 270 year old company

twiss

9 hours ago

https://theonion.com/about-us/ says:

> Rising from its humble beginnings as a print newspaper in 1756, The Onion now enjoys a daily readership of 4.3 trillion and has grown into the single most powerful and influential organization in human history.

so I'm pretty sure it's just a joke.

plasticchris

9 hours ago

Seems legit, I trust them. They even filed an amicus brief with scotus

mooreds

9 hours ago

Here's the amicus brief: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242292/2022...

shermantanktop

9 hours ago

Read the whole thing. Lots of onion-type gags in there.

xattt

7 hours ago

How does that work on the authoring side? Are there staff writers that follow a court document style guide, or are there lawyers on retainer that are a personality match for the org?

computomatic

an hour ago

I’ve had the privilege to work at a company with a highly aligned legal team. It turns out there are quite a few people who get law degrees and are just sensible, chill, fun people. And if you can hire them onto staff, there’s no limit to the awesome things you can do.

jaggederest

an hour ago

I've never frowned while paying a legal bill. They do good work, provide useful perspective, avoid problems before they start... reminds me of the better engineers I know, but for contracts and compliance.

m463

2 hours ago

I think they do it with CSS

Who knows, if they've been around for 270 years, they might use troff like research papers.

jmcgough

7 hours ago

Gillis (head writer for the onion) drafted the tone, arguments and jokes. He connected to Novak's lawyer through a friend at the firm. Novak's lawyer then connected Gillis to a former colleague who helped format it and provide relevant legal statute.

I was surprised that they didn't contribute to the jokes, it really does read like it was written by a particularly funny lawyer.

m463

2 hours ago

This is how the exponential growth of technology works. It helps the valuation.

notatoad

5 hours ago

jokes? in america's most trusted news source? i don't think so

eesmith

an hour ago

I have a copy of "Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America's Finest News Source".

Quoting its Wikipedia page: "The book, spun off from The Onion weekly-newspaper format of dryly satirizing current events, features mocked-up newspaper front pages from the entire 20th century, presented as though The Onion had been continuously in print since before 1900." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Dumb_Century

a012

9 hours ago

Yeah I know, nobody takes The Onion at face value. They like to play with words

zahlman

8 hours ago

TIL from mid-2011 to mid-2012 the print edition of The Onion was actually distributed here in Toronto (https://globalnews.ca/news/125698/the-onion-newspaper-coming... ; https://nmc-mic.ca/2012/07/24/star-media-group-suspends-publ...). Seems I missed out :(

yargs

6 hours ago

This was a big highlight for me working at Yonge/Dundas at the time. I could go grab a coffee and pick up The Onion from an old school newspaper rack. First time I saw it, I couldn't believe it was free!

dgemm

4 hours ago

They were free in TTC stations.

PeterHolzwarth

3 hours ago

I wish the title could be changed to something that reflects the actual need: The Onion has gaps in their archive, and are asking for fans to help fill those gaps.

vitaflo

7 hours ago

I may actually have some of these. I picked up a bunch of issues in Madison in the early 90's and I'm pretty sure I still have them...somewhere.

smoovb

2 hours ago

One of the highlights of trips to Milwaukee - picking up the latest Onion and Shepherd Express.

quacked

6 hours ago

On the night the Onion finally went out of print my friends and I went and took a few of the newspaper boxes they distributed them out of in Madison. One stayed at our friend's house, the other one we used as a distribution box for our own anonymous satirical newspaper we wrote for our high school.

mat_epice

10 hours ago

I was excited that I may have been able to help, but I just have issues from volumes 36 and 37... Perhaps this is for the best, as it would have deeply fed my pack rat tendencies.

johnnyApplePRNG

10 hours ago

Did somebody steal these magazines or are they just being overly dramatic?

jandrese

9 hours ago

I'm guessing they lost their back issues due to neglect and sometimes tragedy. When people are first starting out they often don't think that in 30 years time they will want a physical copy of their joke periodical and warehouse space is always limited. When budgets get tight it is sometimes the storage bill that has to be cut.

WorldMaker

3 hours ago

Not to mention how easy it is to lose archives in things like office moves. Put in the wrong pile and shredded to save space on a moving truck or a closet was missed to be marked to moved and left to the next renter/owner to "clean out" and not having any clue if it was a valuable archive closet or not.

I believe The Onion moved (back) to Chicago from NYC in 2012 around the time that print editions were also discontinued.

qingcharles

2 hours ago

The Lady magazine was one of the more popular magazines in England for about 150 years and recently went bankrupt. They'd managed to keep a few copies of every single issue in their archives, all the way back to the first one. I was petrified they would get junked, but they have been moved to storage, but who knows how much that's costing from the leftovers of the insolvency? Would love to buy it if I had the cash.

smitty1e

9 hours ago

They had a mood swing ahead of the 2008 election, and truly hilarious characters like Herbert Kornfeld were canceled.

https://theonion.com/cash-room-bitch-be-havin-my-shortie-181...

sghiassy

10 hours ago

Could also just be a joke - never know with the Onion ;)

_joel

10 hours ago

They could have just lost them too, doesn't need to be nefarious.

striking

10 hours ago

It was me. Just wait until they find out which of the 1920s issues I took.

Vaslo

10 hours ago

Hard to tell if the onion is trying to be funny?

dfxm12

9 hours ago

TIL The Onion goes back to at least 1988.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of what their new(ish) management has been doing, especially with infowars. I hope they can get the issues they're looking for.

benzible

8 hours ago

It started at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. I was an undergrad there at the time and never missed an issue (but unfortunately didn't save them). A few random observations:

* It was a huge hit on campus almost right away, or at least once it found its footing and sensibility - the dry conventions of journalism applied to mundane events.

* The sensibility of The Onion was very midwestern, and specifically "college-town Midwestern slacker". I knew exactly the type of people they had in mind when writing about "Area Man". This article captures that well: https://www.midstory.org/the-onions-midwestern-homecoming/

* I remember thinking that lots of college towns must have a satirical newspaper as good as this. Then when it went national, realizing that it was really something special.

vitaflo

7 hours ago

Personally I always picked up an issue to see if the "Drunk of the Week" was someone I knew on campus.

shagie

5 hours ago

The coupons at the bottom were a great value. "Most biomass for the buck at Cellar Subs."

I wonder what freshmen who didn't know about it thought about that issue in August of '91 when going to their first lecture "University digs mass grave for incoming freshmen." (The foundations of Grainger Hall were being excavated)

ck2

10 hours ago

libraries sadly have to destroy old archives all the time

but it's not like a lost Doctor Who episode, it will show up eventually

meanwhile they can keep eerily predicting dystopia like the government televising executions for entertainment a year before it happens

qingcharles

2 hours ago

It won't always show up. There are some magazines that are getting down to a tiny handful of extant copies of some issues.

Even mags where there were hundreds of thousands or millions of copies printed there are issues getting scarce. Trying to find a June 2002 issue of Maximum PC to scan was troublesome. I have one now in the scan queue, but even the cover was a mystery:

https://www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/maximum_pc/page/2/

mooreds

10 hours ago

Should have posted the direct link with more details about what they are looking for and how to help.

That's here: https://theonion.com/archivehunt/

tomhow

9 hours ago

Updated, thanks!

mooreds

9 hours ago

Title should actually be "Do you have pre-2014 Onion issues?"

Because they are looking for issues in 2012 and 2013 as well.