The Onion Is Not a Joke
“We want to be one of the few new media companies that’s able to figure out these changes that are taking place,” Mike McAvoy, the president and chief operating officer of Onion Inc., told me. An avalanche of money is waiting for whoever effectively blurs the line between publishing and advertising. “Ultimately, we see everything as converging, and if you’re a great content creator, your business will thrive,” he said.
.. Of course, this sponsorship model raises concerns about editorial independence. Yes, even made-up news is theoretically subject to pressure from advertisers.
.. The Onion was created to parody traditional media, but it depends on the very same business models it sometimes mocks. As old models disappeared, Onion Inc. faced the same problem as every other major publisher in America.
.. “We only care about our advertisers,” Bolton joked. “We don’t care about our readers at all. We want to optimize for advertisers and give them whatever they want. We want to give them full control of our homepage and our content. After that, we’ll let the readers do what they want.”