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Give The Onion a Pulitzer Campaign Gaining Steam
Long before Stewart or Colbert were on TV you could count on The Onion to bring you your daily dose of fake or funny news. After the recent publication of their 1000th issue, a small but growing movement has started pushing for the Pulitzer Prize to be awarded to the satirical site. The Americans for Fairness in Awarding Journalism Prizes website encourages readers to submit videos on why they think The Onion deserves the honor. The movement has grown so large that you can find videos from Tom Hanks and Arianna Huffington among the user submissions.
I have an Onion Pulitzer in my pants.
Don't you have therapy you're supposed to be going to, Mr. Congressman?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The Onion is just about as believable as mainstream media most of the time. Probably closer to reality most of the time.
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How can the Onion survive now that the real news is reporting the special election to fill Wiener's seat?
(and how are Japanese newscasts reporting it? rawr)
Their only bias is attempting to be funny. They make fun of both sides equally. They may be the only major American news source that doesn't lean left or right. Isn't that worth a Pulitzer?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Don't forget that there are Pulitzer Prizes available in many categories. Should they win an award for reporting breaking news? Of course not. But they could be deserving of a prize in the Commentary, Criticism, or Editorial writing categories. And of course, there's always the fiction category.
If anything, The Onion has made people more aware of the news simply by mocking it. Compared to the press-release journalism most news outlets use, it is actually quite the writing accomplishment.
If Obama can get a nobel peace prize for doing absolutely nothing then surely the onion can get a Pullitzer.
lol, The Onion? If you are going to give a Pulitzer to any satirical news show, it should be the The Daily Show, which has done far more to advance News on an informative level and humor level than the Onion has. The Onion is just a parody site, that has parroted back warped versions of current events. Granted, a Pulitzer is probably just for print journalism (I am guessing), but if you are going to start lobbying to create new categories, create one to recognize a show that has substance and lulz.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
This goes to show fake news media can be more real than real news media,,, for at least its honest and relevant about what it does,
I would think that the Onion's best chance would be the "Feature Writing" category, actually.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I've learned stuff from The Onion. The most memorable tidbit was when they did the Third Amendment Rights Group Celebrates Another Successful Year http://www.theonion.com/articles/third-amendment-rights-group-celebrates-another-su,2296/ which mentions Engblom v. Carey. When I saw that my thought was "wait, is that a real court case?" And it turned out it is - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engblom_v._Carey . Really, an actual case revolving around your right for the government not to quarter soldiers in your homes. The Onion is awesome. They don't just do satire, they do clever, well-informed satire that is well-researched and includes neat factual details.
Don't forget that there are Pulitzer Prizes available in many categories. Should they win an award for reporting breaking news? Of course not. But they could be deserving of a prize in the Commentary, Criticism, or Editorial writing categories. And of course, there's always the fiction category.
Perhaps they can get one for being Most Onionesque
i'd vote for that
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If Dave Barry can win one, so can The Onion.
Kelly consistently puts out the highest-quality political cartoons out there. In a field comprised of over-the-top garbage, Kelly manages to make his points while mocking the format that he himself is using. He deserves the Political Cartooning Pulitzer without having to redefine it, or invent a new category.
I too am glad that GP is insightful enough to see through The Onion's bland and predictable humor. Were it not for him, I too would be trapped among the uninformed masses. Truly, satire is the lowest form of humor!
No. The original actually makes sense. Because the movement is so large, even folks like Tom Hanks and A Huffington, who presumably would not bother with trivial movements, have gotten involved. Yours says that the large size of the movement would mean one should not expect submissions from Hanks and Huffington.
Ward Sutton definitely deserves one. Not necessarily for his "Kelly" Onion comics, though, he's done a lot of amazing work...
It's still not funny.
Maybe you will argue it's an amazing periodical achievement. Or that it's an important piece of American satire. However, it does not imbue me with chortling.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
There's a element of truth to them all. "Black Man Given Worst Job in America," for example. True, from a certain perspective, and poignant commentary on race relations. From today's issue, "NASA Finds Evidence Of Humans On Moon," is 100% true and funny for several reasons. Another one, "Pakistani Intelligence Announces Its Full Cooperation With U.S. Forces During Upcoming Top Secret June 12 Drone Strike On Al-Qaeda At 5:23 A.M. Near Small Town Of Razmani In North Waziristan," is so close to true, it might as well be. I would argue that the Onion's reporting has been more insightful and better written than the best of Colbert and Stewart combined.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
According to the official guidelines, there are 14 categories of journalism Pulitzer. Leaving aside the ones that cant be made to apply to the Onion's ouvre (a distinguished example of investigative reporting, for instance), there are only four potential categories in which it could compete:
Category 1 - a distinguished example of public service by a newspaper or news site,
Category 9 - commentary, or
Category 11 - editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer conceives to be the right direction.
The guidelines state that anyone - that includes you, gentle reader - may submit an entry for consideration. You don't have to be The Onion or even have The Onion's permission to submit it for a Pulitzer. All you have to do put together a submission package that conforms to the Pulitzer guidelines (pdf), and pay the $50 entry fee.
I suspect that a flood of thousands of third-party entries on behalf of The Onion would be certain to garner sufficient attention on the part of the Pulitzer Board to guarantee it would, at a minimum, take into consideration awarding a special Pulitzer to The Onion, if not next year (It's too late to enter the Onion for consideration for this year), then in s subsequent year sometime in the not-too-distant future. And I'm certain that would be the case, if the flood of third-party applications recurs in 2013 and 2014.
FWIW, Next year's deadline is February 11, 2012, and the window for submission opens January 1, 2012, for work originally published during 2011.
So, to summarize, if you think The Onion deserves a Pulitzer, it's within your power, both as an individual, and especially as a community, to lobby very effectively for that to happen. All that's required is that you, as an individual, spend a little time, effort, and money crafting an entry submission on behalf of The Onion, and then send that sucker in on January 4, 2012 (because New Year's Day falls on a Friday next year, so you're likely to be too busy taking advantage of the long weekend to want to hit the Post Office or UPS store on the 2nd). And, if enough of you, as a community, spend that time, effort, and money, you just might make it so.
Check out my novel.
Perhaps they can get one for being Most Onionesque
i'd vote for that
The scary thing is, they'd face a lot of competition from the mainstream press.
Breakfast served all day!
Poor Dave Barry, finally gets a movie made from one of his stories, and it turns out his farce about a stolen atomic bomb finally makes it to theaters mere months after 9/11.
And it had Tim Allen in it.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
OP is saying the movement is so large you can't find them, not that they aren't there. It's like Where's Waldo. Of course this is untrue, or nobody would know they were there.
Of course Arianna Huffington supports giving The Onion a Pulitzer. She's running her own fake newspaper.
Probably closer to reality most of the time.
Note the publication date.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-pros,464/
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
A classic Onion article is when they wrote about an entirely non-fictional event:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/muscleman-put-in-charge-of-worlds-fifthlargest-eco,877/
http://www.talknerdy.org
Any day now, there'll be an Onion article on the Onion winning a Pulitzer.