It's difficult to review The Onion, a parody news outlet with thousands of stories, in its entirety, but as someone who has read it for almost 20 years, I can give you an idea of what to expect.
Most Onion stories are parodies of various news articles, often turning typical news stories on their head, providing satirical commentary on social issues or just being flat-out absurd. They're generally funniest when the headline doesn't sum up the entire article, especially when the humor is relatively subtle or the entire story leads up to a joke near the end. Because of that, I've been somewhat disappointed that many of the more recent articles seem to basically be the joke in the headline repeated throughout the article, not to mention that most are shorter than older Onion stories.
There are quite a few other types of stories of varying degrees of quality.
The op-eds are often rather funny, although I find the recurring columnists less amusing than those who only appear once.
The Point/Counterpoint articles are some of the best features, especially when they contrast one reasonable individual with a less reasonable opponent.
The "Ask a..." advice columns have more than a little missed potential. The answers can be funny, but it would've been better if the columnists had made even a token effort to answer the questions.
The infographics and other lists are often enjoyable, and vary widely in terms of topic and format.
The "man on the street" interviews can be quite amusing, especially if the respondents are rather ill-informed or suffer from Skewed Priorities.
Unfortunately, the video news stories aren't quite as interesting or well-made as many of the older stories. As I mentioned before, most of them tend to repeat the jokes made in their headlines, with little depth or variation. In particular, the Autistic Reporter segments are a long string of stereotypical autistic behavior that is meant to be considered funny.
The Onion's stories can vary in quality, and aren't quite as good as they used to be. It can also be rather depressing given the current state of the world and how they barely even need to bother putting a satirical spin on the news anymore. That said, it's well worth your time if you're a news junkie who enjoys parodies of current events.
Website Area Troper Reviews Parody Newspaper
It's difficult to review The Onion, a parody news outlet with thousands of stories, in its entirety, but as someone who has read it for almost 20 years, I can give you an idea of what to expect.
Most Onion stories are parodies of various news articles, often turning typical news stories on their head, providing satirical commentary on social issues or just being flat-out absurd. They're generally funniest when the headline doesn't sum up the entire article, especially when the humor is relatively subtle or the entire story leads up to a joke near the end. Because of that, I've been somewhat disappointed that many of the more recent articles seem to basically be the joke in the headline repeated throughout the article, not to mention that most are shorter than older Onion stories.
There are quite a few other types of stories of varying degrees of quality.
Unfortunately, the video news stories aren't quite as interesting or well-made as many of the older stories. As I mentioned before, most of them tend to repeat the jokes made in their headlines, with little depth or variation. In particular, the Autistic Reporter segments are a long string of stereotypical autistic behavior that is meant to be considered funny.
The Onion's stories can vary in quality, and aren't quite as good as they used to be. It can also be rather depressing given the current state of the world and how they barely even need to bother putting a satirical spin on the news anymore. That said, it's well worth your time if you're a news junkie who enjoys parodies of current events.