Peeling "The Onion": A Look Inside The All Nonsense Newsroom

Beschreibung

Description: (Begin EJ) INT BRIEF CUTS: Brief cuts of a sign for “The Onion”. 2CU: Headlines from “The Onion”. MS: An “Onion” staff member laughs during a meeting. BRIEF CUTS: Brief cuts of “The Onion” employees working. BRIEF CUTS: Brief cuts of Geist walking into “The Onion” office. CU: Sign on door reading “Onion Writers Rm”. BRIEF CUTS: Brief cuts of time lapse footage of “The Onion” staff gathering for a meeting. MS: During the meeting, “The Onion” Editor-in-Chief Cole Bolton says, “It’s a Sunday morning show people, let’s keep it clean”. MS: Geist and others laugh as a staff member says, “This show airs in churches”. MS: During the meeting, Bolton says, “So everyone, big hearty welcome to our guest today, Willard Scott. 2MS: “The Onion” staff applauds for Geist. MS: During the meeting, Bolton says, “Yeah, you can feel free to jump in as we read these things off. I’m just going to read a whole bunch of them and people are going to vote”. MS: During the meeting, Bolton reads from a list of potential headlines including, “Heroic Police Officer Talks Man Down From Edge Of Purchasing Subway Foot-Long Italian BMT”, “Red Lobster Introduces New Wood-Grilled Mermaid Tail”, “‘I’m the Only Fan I Need,’ Silently Weeping Willie Geist Says To Self In Mirror”. BRIEF CUTS: Brief cuts of “The Onion” staff working. PARTIAL VO: During an interview with, Geist says, “So this is all ‘The Onion’, right here? (BOLTON: This is- yeah, this is ‘The Onion’ right here) This whole room? Okay”. MS: During an interview with Bolton, Geist says, “So how many total employees for ‘The Onion’? (BOLTON: There’s actually about a hundred in Onion Inc., but there’s only about 12 writers on ‘The Onion’ writing staff) Is that right? Wow”. MS: During a staff meeting, Geist asks, “What’s the typical background of an ‘Onion’ writer? (Uh, we all came through the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank) Well I know you did, but since that’s not typical… (BOLTON: No, yeah Richard Pryor came through…)”. MS: During an interview with Bolton, Geist says, “There you are at the Federal Reserve- (BOLTON: Yeah, yeah) –typing away, emailing the jokes in. How did you know who to send them to, first of all? (I sent them to the address that was on the website) Did you really? (BOLTON: Yeah, yeah. So I did that for about five months. And then, just by chance, a headline I had written was very, very similar to one that ran on their website, and I sent like a frantic email being like, ‘Hey! I think you used my headline, this is the best day of my life.’ And they said, ‘No, that was pitched by one of our writers.’ But they said we have noticed that you’ve sent these things in and we’ll give you a shot next week if you want to try your hand”. MS: During a staff meeting, Bolton reads potential headlines, including “Trump Spends Entire Morning on Hold Renewing Library Card”, “Dad Could do a Better Job Than Either of These Bozos”, “Trump Wakes Up at 4:00 a.m. to Pack Self Bagged Lunches for Rest of Week”. MS: During the meeting, Geist says, “So silence is bad? I’m picking up on this” as the staff laughs. MS: During the meeting, Geist says, “Silence is bad and normal”. MS: During a staff meeting, Bolton reads potential headlines, including “‘Look at All the Tiny Houses,’ Whispers Trump as Jet Reaches 10,000 Feet”. PARTIAL VO: During the meeting, Geist says, “So there was a theme of the Trump jokes- (BOLTON: There was) –of him performing these mundane, everyday activities. (BOLTON: Seems like most comedy outlets go in the vein of trying to exaggerate him, so we thought we’d just go in a completely different direction where he’s just sort of a soft-spoken, tender human being who has a lot of love to give) It does seem like he presents a dilemma though, because on the one hand there’s a lot to work with there, but on the other hand when he puts out a Tweet of himself with a taco bowl- (BOLTON: Right) –and the thumbs up and says ‘Happy Cinco de Mayo, I love Hispanics,’- (BOLTON: Yeah) –how do you parody that? (BOLTON: It’s- I mean you can’t, he’s just like a human hyperbole. It’s like impossible to take that to the next- he got in a Twitter feud with the Pope, like you can’t- you can’t go any further than that, like what he does himself”. GFX: Insert still of a Tweet posted to Trump’s Twitter (www.twitter.com) account featuring Trump giving the thumbs up as he eats from a taco bowl”. INT MS: During an “Onion” staff meeting, Bolton reads potential headlines including, “Hillary Clinton Bowls Over Catcher to Score Winning Run In Campaign Staff Softball Game”. PARTIAL VO: During the meeting, Geist says, “How about on the other side? More fun to make fun of Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders? (BOLTON: Hillary) Yeah? (BOLTON: There’s like a number of angles that we approached Hillary with. There’s also just her sort of ruthlessness and sort of like the inevitable march of her Presidency cause she’s just such like a consummate politician)”. GFX: Insert stills of “The Onion” headlines including, “Clinton Tosses Unpledged Superdelegate In Trunk Of Car” and “Clinton Credits Nevada Victory To Inescapable, Pitch-Black Tide Of Fate” INT PARTIAL VO: During an “Onion” staff meeting, Geist says, “One of the highlights has been Diamond Joe Biden”. GFX: Insert stills of headlines from “The Onion” reading, “Biden Says Life Better Than It Was 4 Years Ago But Nothing Can Tough Summer Of ‘87”, “Biden To Honor Fallen Soldiers By Jumping Motorcycle Over Vietnam Memorial” and “Obama Issues Presidential Pardon To Get Biden Out Of Jail For Third Times This Year”. INT PARTIAL VO: During an “Onion” staff meeting, Geist says, “Just really Pulitzer Prize-worthy stuff going on over there. ‘Biden Huddling With Closest Advisers On Whether To Spend 200 Bucks On Scorpions Tickets’. (CHAD NACKERS (‘The Onion’ Head Writer): Yeah, I mean that’s the beauty too, of Biden, is that he never has any money, he’s always broke. So he’s always scrambling to earn bucks. (STAFF MEMBER: And like, he kind of needs the Vice President job) And he’s embraced it, right? Biden’s one guy who likes it. He’s been asked about it. (NACKERS: Yeah, we did a Reddit AMA, ask me anything, as Diamond Joe Biden, and he replied to that with- but it was like a picture of um, like a Corvette or something that he liked. He was like, ‘I’m not into Trans Ams’)”. GFX: Insert still of a headline from “The Onion” reading, “Biden Huddling With Closest Advisers On Whether To Spend 200 Bucks On Scorpions Tickets”. GFX: Insert still of a Tweet from Vice President Joe Biden’s Twitter account featuring Biden standing next to a muscle car. INT BRIEF CUTS: Brief cuts of “The Onion” employees working. PARTIAL VO: While giving Geist a tour of the office, Bolton says, “And then we can go to the magical place, the Graphics department, where they’re hard at work doing what they do best”. PARTIAL VO: While speaking with “The Onion” Art Director Eric Ervine, Geist says, “You got some favorites? (ERVINE: Yeah, from the past year. Let’s see, we’ll start with- this was a classic here, ‘SeaWorld to Discontinue Great White Shark Ride’, ‘More Corporations Using Tag And Release Programs To Study American Consumers’”. GFX: Insert stills of “The Onion” graphics and headlines reading, “SeaWorld to Discontinue Great White Shark Ride” and “More Corporations Using Tag And Release Programs To Study American Consumers”. INT PARTIAL VO: While speaking with Geist, Ervine says, “This is one of our editors and two guys from the finance department just- (GEIST: Is that right?) –yeah. (GEIST: So what’d you get him to lie on the ground for ya?) Yep. We put him into a prop jacket”. STILL: Photo from an “Onion” article. INT PARTIAL VO: During an interview with Bolton, Geist says, “Like many of the newspapers that you guys spoof, you’ve gone through the same challenges, deciding when to get rid of the print newspaper and go digital, you did that, what was that decision like? (BOLTON: We were facing the same cost pressures, the same revenue issues from advertisers not wanting to publish in print, and it’s certainly not something the Editorial Board wanted) Do you lose anything by not having a print newspaper? (BOLTON: I think we do. I think anytime we can look exactly like something very dry and very stilted, it helps our comedy. And there’s nothing drier and more stilted than just a newspaper, you know, a form of media that’s existed for hundreds of years”. BRIEF CUTS: Brief cuts of “The Onion” employees at work. MS: “The Onion” print copy distribution box. CU: Print copies of the onion in distribution box with front page headline, “‘Onion Print Revenues Up 5,000%”. MS: During an interview with Bolton, Geist says, “So as you look big picture for ‘The Onion,’ (BOLTON: Right) –it’s gone from print to purely online. What’s the next big thing for you guys when you think strategy? (BOLTON: Sure. Well I’m sure you know that ‘The Onion’ is the largest media company in the world) Yes. (BOLTON: Yeah, we have 12 billion daily readers in 100 countries) I knew it well, yep. (BOLTON: Yeah, so I think we’re just gonna continue to dominate the media landscape. I look forward to acquiring NBC and your little dog-and-pony show you got going on here)”. (End EJ)