Onion to Shut Doors Friday, Citing Trump

CHICAGO IL—AP— Heralded news satire site, The Onion.com, announced that it would be closing it’s doors for good this Friday, laying off 200 staffers and ending it’s successful 20 year run as one of the best known humor sites on the web.

Citing the inability to keep ahead of the gaffes and random potshots and insults hurled in all directions by freewheeling GOP candidate Donald Trump, The Onion blamed weak web traffic leading to disappointing advertising results .

“Trump killed us. People are howling at the type of headlines they expected to be seeing from us in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and even the National Review. These boring, straight-laced newspapers and magazines are publishing more shocking, outrageous and, frankly, more creative material than we can possibly dream of,” said CEO Steve Hannah.

According to Wikipedia, “The Onion's articles cover current events, both real and fictional, satirizing the tone and format of traditional news organizations with stories, editorials, op-ed pieces, and man-in-the-street interviews using a traditional news website layout and an editorial voice modeled after that of the Associated Press. The publication's humor often depends on presenting mundane, everyday events as newsworthy, surreal or alarming.”

Recent Onion stories that had to be killed at presstime included Trump saying he wanted to “hit so hard,” the speakers at the Democratic National Convention and his mocking an American Muslim couple who’s son was an unequivocal war hero in Iraq.

Choking back tears, Editor Cole Bolton said, “next he’ll probably say that the women who have abortions should be put in jail or something ridiculous like that.” When informed  that Trump indeed had said that already, he threw up his hands, saying, “that’s what I’m talking about. No matter how bizarre the story, Trump is likely to actually do it. He should have been our dream candidate, but instead he is ‘out-Onioning’ us.”

The Onion had increased it’s staff by 25% in mid-2015 as it anticipated a ripe season of satire with the coming election and the Zika Olympics but viewership waned as people spent their spare time Facebooking outrageous stories from traditional news outlets instead of turning to The Onion for entertainment.

Apparently The Huffington Post is also under pressure as it’s quarterly results release last Thursday indicated a 23% decline in traffic.