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The Onion to buy the New York Times
According to an UpsideToday article, everyone's favorite "free registration required" news source is to be acquired by the online satirical paper The Onion. It's a clever little piece about all the mergers floating
around these days.
The thing is, these geeks' companies are accruing fantastic value. The stocks value just seems to get pushed higher up on its own hype. This would normally be an unstable event. But, once wealthy, they buy the NYT, or AOL merges with Time/Warner, etc. Now if their E-company dies, they have a stable business to fall back on. Amazon.com still has acquired no such safety net (which they should have done by buyine some brick and mortar chain store) and may soon begin to plummet. The geeks are quietly taking over huge sectors of traditional business. And the pundits, now finding that Steve Case is their boss are left reeling from the turn of events. This is all somewhat of a silent revolution of the geeks.
Friends of mine had subscriptions to the dead-tree edition of The Onion back before they discovered the internet. Great newspaper :-)
You can still get print subscriptions here. Definately worth the $50/year.
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Open mind, insert foot.
ok, you know it's a bizzare statement about e-companies and hyper inflated valuations, when upon reading this, for upwards of 10-20 secodns, i actually thought to myself... wow... that's crazy, what's the onion going to do with the times? in my mind i envisioned the onion IPO, that i hadn't heard about, them having 400 million dollars in capital to throw around, and just for the hell of it, one of them saying: "hey! let's get the times..."
wow... 11:28 a.m. and i am already reching for some guiness... it's going to be a long weekend.
In a decision reached early this morning, the editors of The Onion have decided to buy the New York Times.
"We were at Starbucks standing in line for donuts and coffee, and there was some discussion of sitting around afterward. At this impromptu meeting the decision was made," said one of the editors.
Stock observers were skeptical that the Onion management team could effectively improve the situation at the Times. "They really don't have any managerial authority with this purchase. They basically paid about a dollar for one copy. They may think that gives them editorial control, but I'm sure they'll be quite surprised when they come to the Big Apple and start trying to fire people," said one analyst, who declined to be identified.
But the Onion editors believe there is unique synergy between the two media properties. "By bringing the quality journalism of the New York Times under our wing, we gain access to the stories of the day, some editorial content, even a world-renowned crossword puzzle," said Onion chief editor Dikkers when questioned. He continued to vigorously defend the purchase, saying, "These will be invaluable to our branding dialogue, even if we get powdered sugar on some of the pages."
Independent observers cautioned that this might prove to be a financial minefield. "They may not get the full dollar-twenty-five worth of the paper. They may as well have spent half as much and bought a Wisconsin State Journal instead," suggested Vera Mateja, a woman sitting in the corner sipping a frothy cappuccino.
"Really, look at them just talking, not even reading it," said Mark McCown, a local sanitation consultant standing in line waiting for the barista to prepare his grande latte. "Buying a newspaper like the New York Times is a momentous undertaking. If you're just going to skim the headlines, I guarantee you won't get your money's worth." Mr. McCown then returned his latte, which he had ordered with whipped cream on top.
Dikkers remained adamant that the newspaper would continue to be managed as it always had been. "We're not interfering purchasers. We know the value of this property and we believe in time that we'll develop the synergy we need. The one certainty we have is that our Onion satires will have improved verisimilitude for our readership, which is the main concern we had in making this purchase."
As for Onion readers, they seem nonchalant. "It's still the same Onion," said Raj Suharda, who was picking up a copy from the Starbucks lobby without buying coffee. "I don't care if they model it on the New York Times or the Beloit Daily News."
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
I'm a UW-Madison alum, and remember when the Onion was just in paper form, and not even in color. I suppose I shouldn't be too critical, as it's just a joke article.
Although I believe that the majority of The Onion's readers are now (probably thanks to Slashdot) via the web. I'm not sure if this qualifies it as "web-based", as that guy stated in his opening paragraph.
Just a little rant.
"More organs means more human." - Zim
Has anyone else noticed that the last 10 weeks or so have been pretty poor?
Actually, i thought last week's (week of February 9), was pretty damn funny. The Oxygen Network Infographic("Does This Top Go With This Show?"), "Why do all these Homosexuals..." and the "Valentine's Day Kids Page" were inspired humor, IMHO
informative? i can just see some moderator who's never read the onion going "gee, that seems like an important point. i wonder how they let that slip by".
(in case anyone missed the joke, the supposably fictional Zweibel writes a column as the editor of the onion--just follow the link. hence, the only appropriate moderation would have been 'funny')
cheers,
sh_
Interested in learning Chinese or Japanese? check out Chinese/Japanese-English Dictiona
Let me just assure all of you that when the Onion Media Empire eventually expands to absorb VA Linux/Andover/Slashdot and Mr. Taco and his associates are positively swimming in the lucre of multi-merger mania, we will insist -- nay, demand! -- that they uphold the same strict standards of journalistic integrity, impartiality and morality that have guided the operations of Slashdot to this very day.
-A.
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What did the walrus say to the penguin? "No soap, radio."
"Why do all these Homosexuals..." and the "Valentine's Day Kids Page" were inspired humor
Unfortunately these 2 articles were reruns.
It's nice to see changes happening that will finally improve the journalistic integrity of the New York Times! ;-)
- Bias away from personal freedom/responsibility, and towards government regulation of private activities,
- Bias towards big businesses who provide advertising money, which is necessary for the survival of newspapers.
The NYT/Onion merger would ultimately result in the well-deserved destruction of the NYT, but at least it would become a credible source of news and insightful commentary before its death.Bring it on!
-- My comment is above.
The article mentions the publisher of The Onion is a Mr. Peter K. Haise. Everyone knows the publisher really is T. Herman Zweibel, son of the paper's founder, Herman Ulysses Zweibel.
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Open mind, insert foot.
Has anyone else noticed that the last 10 weeks or so have been pretty poor? Even the What Do You Think? bits have been poor. I have to wonder whether they're so busy with other projects that either they're slipping, or they're saving their "A" material for something more lucrative...
>Has anyone else noticed that the last 10 weeks or so [of The Onion] have been pretty poor?
...
Frankly, the quality of the posts at Slashdot has been declining lately. Everything was fine in the Good Old Days, but we all know those ended around 10 o'clock this morning. Around noon the decline became precipitous, with a spate of Phirst Posts and Natalie Portman headlines, and at 2pm pure spam began to arrive by the bucketful. At this point, slightly past midnight Sunday, any astute person can see that post quality has reached a new all-time low.
Actually, it's decliend even as I'm writing this p0st. First post! Natalie Portman! It's reaching another new low right now. <a href="http://www.regisphilbin.com/">click here to win a million bucks!</a>
Fortunately, I've recognized this trend and halted it. By posting substantively I believe I can tip the balance. This post already has some pretty stupid things in it, though; I think I can save things if I don't submit it
Too late.
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
The good thing about The Onion before they went online (and before the paper went to color) was that not only were the headlines funny, but the articles were as well.
Perhaps I'm just being nostalgic, but some of my favorite articles were "Reincarnation of Jesus Christ Adds Excitement to Kegger" and "Super Monkey Collider Loses Funding". The names don't do much, but the articles were hilarious.
Another thing that is disapointing are some of the changes they've made. The "What Do You Think?" section used to have the same pictures of the same people in it every week, but the names were different, and one was always a Systems Analyst. It was almost like a running joke, that for some unknown reason they pulled.
Other thing they pulled (for better known reasons) was the "Drunk of the Week" section in the back on the paper. Every weekend they'd go out and find some drunk in Madison give them a sign, take their picture and give them like 2 bucks. Hilarious.
I miss the old days.
...will be tomorrow's headline I'm sure.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
When I was at UW Madison (I'm an alum), I used to love reading the Onion while waiting for classes on (I think) Tuesday mornings. That was by far the best thing delivered on any campus I've ever been. My faves headlines were:
1. Jesus takes on the NBA with his ascention dunk. (picture Jesus with is mouth hanging open like michael jordan just about to slam a ball over a bunch of other players).
2. Tommy Thompson (Wisconsin's governer) changes name to the Sexecutioner. (Picture of tommy thompson's head -he's very boyish- on top of the body of a some buff S+M leather dude).
3. Pope admits "God ain't said sh*t to me".
4. Pure silk to spew from Cindy Crawford's ass.
5. Oh and it goes on....
-- Moondog
Instead of taking an opportunity to discuss the actual implications of the AOL-Time Warner merger (which bears satire and attack, as AOL wants to apply shody journalistic standards to their online properties), this piece focuses on satiring stock based mergers.
While stock mergers are neat because they trade paper money for new paper money, they seem reasonable for a merger.
Instead of tackling the REAL problems (although alluded to by discussing ways to drop NYTs costs 80% by creating sources), it focuses on the uninteresting side of the merger.
This was a silly piece, not worthy of a post.
However, the old story of a Catholic Church-Microsoft Merger with other church based mergers was entertaining... I could go for running that again.
Feel free to mark down.
Alex
... if you access the site via partners.nytimes.com instead of www.nytimes.com cheerio, rs