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American Morning
Look Inside Offices of 'the ONION'
Aired June 20, 2002 - 09:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. It is a special day. Anderson Cooper finally back from Afghanistan, back home here at AMERICAN MORNING.
He's been reporting in Afghanistan for a while - welcome home to you.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks. It's nice to be back.
HEMMER: And reporting of a different kind I understand today. What's happening.
COOPER: That's right. Well I don't know if you have ever heard of this newspaper, "the ONION," but...
HEMMER: Sure have.
COOPER: ... it's probably my favorite newspaper. What's interesting is that in the past few weeks there's been a lot of satirical articles overseas that have actually picked up "the ONION" articles. I dropped by their Manhattan headquarters to check the method behind what often seems like madness.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Enter the offices of "the ONION," and you don't feel like you're visiting a nationwide newspaper. There are drums in the newsroom, Osama bin Laden on the light switch, there's even a shaggy dog.
The small staff of writers meet in a back room pitching stories for the upcoming edition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bishop takes queen.
COOPER: Some ideas work...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Damn, that's funny.
COOPER: ... many others do not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jimmy Phillipe (ph) sues India, Pakistan for proprietary rights to Kashmir. COOPER: Every week, nearly two million people read "the ONION" for its ironic take on the news. There's a free newspaper and a Web site. "the ONION" may not be politically correct, but the writing is smart and almost always funny. Nothing is off limits.
"The Onion" on Middle East terror: "Saddam Hussein Presents Suicide Bomber's Family With Oversized Check." The Catholic Church's sex scandal: "Pope Forgives Molested Children." America after 9/11: "Area Man Not Exactly Sure When to Take Down American Flags."
(on camera): But your take on the crisis in the Middle East is a little different. This headline says: "Sexual Tension Between Arafat and Sharon Reaches Breaking Point."
ROBERT SIEGEL, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "THE ONION": Well that's, I think, a story that's been overlooked. We try to...
COOPER: About the sexual tension between Arafat and Sharon?
SIEGEL: I think there's probably some sexual tension between those two guys, you know? And then this is our Latin motto, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
COOPER: Which is?
SIEGEL: Which is, you are dumb. We're not really right wing or left wing. We're just sort of anti-stupid.
COOPER (voice-over): Not everyone gets the joke, however. China's state-run "Beijing Evening News" recently reprinted an "ONION" spoof claiming Congress was going to leave Washington unless a new capital was built with sky boxes and a retractable roof.
(on camera): The Chinese, they clearly were not in on the joke.
SIEGEL: They were not in on the joke. And not only were they not in on the joke, they weren't in on the rights to run our graphic, which no one has mentioned. But they ran the same graphic, just completely lifted it.
COOPER: That's got to be like a victory for you. I mean, that's pretty good.
SIEGEL: It is to be able to pull one over on someone. I think the language barrier helps and I think the cultural barrier helped too, because I think that something about the "Beijing Evening News" made them really want to think that our Congress would move if a different capital wasn't built for them.
COOPER (voice-over): John Cruson (ph) is an "ONION" staff writer.
(on camera): Are you a news hound? Do you...
JOHN CRUSON (ph), STAFF WRITER, "THE ONION": God, I watch like four hours of news a day, and I have - I subscribe to three newspapers. And the stuff that helps me most with the tone of the humor has got to be the "USA Today," FOX News, CNN, every half-hour type stuff.
COOPER (voice-over): Their business may be comedy, but nearly everyone here insists their mission is serious.
(on camera): Did you consider "the ONION" a real newspaper?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course it is. It's a source of news. It shouldn't be a primary source of news, but you should - if you're going to read the newspaper, you should lay "the ONION" down right next to it.
COOPER: Why?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because "the ONION" - the newspaper is telling you what the facts are, and "the ONION" will tell you what you think about it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well the Chinese newspaper, the "Beijing Evening News" has admitted that they made a mistake in reprinting "the ONION" article, but they still don't quite get the joke. This is their statement. It says, quote, "Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them with the aim of making money. This is what "the ONION" does."
HEMMER: So they don't (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the fact that they had been had?
COOPER: Right. They totally don't get it.
HEMMER: No sense of humor.
COOPER: Yeah.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: As opposed to in red China, where they fabricate the news in order to keep public opinion right where they want it all the time.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And it's no joke.
COOPER: And a new edition of "the ONION" has just hit the newsstand today, and my favorite article so far is the "Martha Stewart Stalker Can Barely Keep Up."
HEMMER: Well, you know, some of that stuff, though, I've got to think hits some pretty sensitive buttons there.
COOPER: You think so? Slightly. "Pope Forgives Molested Children?"
HEMMER: Things like that. And, you know, the Saddam Hussein suicide check. I'm curious to know, how they, as a group, or as publishers of this react to it and handle it? COOPER: They say that there is nothing that's taboo. I mean, they say that there's no subject matter that they wouldn't tackle. You know, the question is how they do it, and they try to do it in a way that's smart and funny. You know after 9/11 that was for them - they were really one of the first groups to come back and start doing comedy again...
HEMMER: Because they backed off, didn't they?
COOPER: Yes. Well they took a week off, as a lot of shows did. But they were really back on before Letterman, before Leno. And they have a book which is this thick, which is full of e-mails from people congratulated them on their post 9/11 issue. It's interesting.
HEMMER: Because they allowed us, if I remember correctly, the opportunity to go back to humor at about the time when everybody was so sensitive.
COOPER: Yeah, and their take on it was - they did this article on hijackers surprised to find cells in hell, which is just amusing.
HEMMER: But welcome back.
COOPER: Thanks. Nice to be back.
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