It’s a funny thing. When Newsweek stopped publishing its print edition this time last year, the news barely even registered. (Don’t panic, it’s coming back in a few months.) But this week, a far more influential publication disappeared into the online-only void, and our flags are at half mast. We speak, of course, about The Onion, the small satirical newspaper that kept us laughing in print for 25 years with stories that ran rings around more serious news outlets with its ability to get to the truth of any news event.
It’s fitting, then, that the newspaper that was able to wring funny-but-poignant truths from events ranging from the mundane to the horrifying couldn’t seem to do its own demise justice. Check out the not-up-to-standard headlines on its final front page:
This from the paper that famously ran front-page headlines like “Not Knowing What Else to Do, Woman Bakes American-flag Cake” in the edition following the Sept. 11th attacks.
We are left with the feeling that for once, overcome with grief for the passing of their print edition, the writers just couldn’t see the funny side.
