Finding humor in Ukraine war? It’s (always) the Onion’s way

There’s a rich history of satirical publications like Mad magazine and National Lampoon — places where the news of the day collides with the potential for laughter that can reduce its heaviness. Spy magazine burned brightly and briefly in the 1980s. Private Eye and Punch were popular English magazines. Notoriously, the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo was the target of a terrorist attack in 2015.

The Onion sometimes looks to be merely entertaining instead of satirical, says James Caron, author of “Satire as the Comic Public Sphere.”

“It’s just kind of silly at times,” Caron says.

Yet it still has the capacity to hit a target squarely. In the wake of several mass shootings in the United States over the past decade, the Onion repeated essentially the same article, changing only a few details, under the headline, “’No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”

“It’s just this endless loop of horror,” Nackers says. The way the Onion matched the repetitiveness with its stories “really struck a nerve with people. It hit it in a way that is respectful. It feels like there’s a really strong point being made, but … it doesn’t feel like you’re exploiting people.”

The Onion, now based in Chicago, has a staff of 20 people. It has gone through a handful of corporate overseers. The current owner, Great Hill Partners, purchased the Onion from the communications company Univision in 2019.