The Onion is all “fake news,” but that’s different from mis- or disinformation, according to its CEO.
In an interview published Thursday with The Beacon, Emmerson College’s student newspaper, Ben Collins shared his experience as the chief executive officer of The Onion, one of the most popular satire platforms in the world.
Collins says the print version of the newspaper, which was revived in 2024 after an 11-year hiatus, has attracted more than 53,000 subscribers. According to The Beacon, where Collins wrote while he was a student at Emmerson College, those numbers put it just outside the top-10 most circulated print newspapers in the U.S.
The Onion, whose motto is “America’s Finest News Source,” along with similar organizations like The Beaverton and the Babylon Bee create joke headlines that parody real news and events. They rely on a similar style to late night talk shows like The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. These late night shows have banded together in recent years to protest what they saw as undue interference from broadcasters.
“There’s nothing fascists hate more than mockery,” Collins said during the interview. He cited “jester’s privilege,” the idea that comedians need to be granted liberties with their speech in order to do their job, which is to make people laugh.
Collins specified a difference between stories “considered fake and what is truly disinformation.”
“It’s important to make it so there is artistic expression of fake ideas, versus trying to deliberately libel and slander people,” Collins told The Beacon.
Some of The Onion’s most famous headlines include:
- Perky ‘Canada’ Has Own Government, Laws
- World Death Rate Holding Steady At 100 Percent
- CIA Realizes It’s Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years
Collins sums up his comedic style as “to say the thing that’s rattling around in the back of your head without having to directly cite every source.”
“(The Onion) can say the unsaid things in American life in a way that a lot of newspapers cannot say right now,” he added.
Collins also shared with The Beacon what he told The Onion staff before the second inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump last January.
“Look, if The Onion is anything, it’s against the man,” Collins said.
