Reason Magazine points out that The Onion has achieved high appreciation from its readers without much high-tech innovation, presently the common theme among newspapers the world over. Instead, “it owes much of its success to low-tech attributes readily available to any paper but nonetheless in short supply: candor, irreverence, and a willingness to offend.” Reason goes so far to ask if The Onion is America’s most intelligent newspaper.

Is that the problem with journalism today? That it is not engaging for an audience looking to be informed but simultaneously entertained? Reason seems to think so: “Too many high priests of journalism still see humor as the enemy of seriousness: If the news goes down too easily, it can’t be very good for you.” In an obvious comparison, Reason joins The Onion with other popular, satirical news sources, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, noting that although these programs aren’t disseminating “fair and balanced” investigative reporting, their viewers are consistently shown to be the most informed people in the United States.  After all, they have to have a good grasp of what’s going on in the world to understand the humor.

So is it time for your daily newspaper to lighten up? I think not. There’s a place in the media spectrum for all types of news. When it comes down to it, papers like The Onion and programs like The Daily Show extract their news from more “serious” sources. Does that mean they dumb down the news. Absolutely not. The best satire publications are brilliantly written and portrayed. But the world still needs the up-to-the-minute news being provided over the wires on the Internet and the well-investigated, “he said – she said” analysis that only newspapers can provide.

Source: Reason Magazine