Fake News/Real News A Fine Line

Julianna McKannis

I'm Julianna McKannis filling in for Clifford Banes.

Joe Randazzo - Editor, The Onion

The Onion is America's finest news source. It has branches in print, the Web, radio, video, and what we say is the final word on whatever the subject may be.

Female Anchor

With all the economic factors indicating the U.S. is heading for a prolonged recession, some experts are suggesting that the government should stop dumping all of our money into an enormous hole. Is it time to close the national money hole?

David Barrodale

That kind of talk is alarmist and irresponsible.

Nancy Fichandler

America needs the money hole!

David Barrodale

Driving truck loads of money out into the New Mexico desert and dumping it into a massive pit is one of America 's greatest traditions.

Joe Randazzo

We have partnerships with news sources like Washington Post, CNN, Slate. We recently launched in 2007 Onion News Network and it's just doing extraordinarily well. It's reached audiences that the newspaper and the online newspaper has never been able to reach through this whole viral thing.

Andrea Bennett

And in Orange County this week California residents are once again participating in the annual tradition of being shocked as wildfires burn their mansions to the ground. Every year the ritual takes place here in the dry brush lands of Orange County where strong Santa Ana winds and warm weather combine to make a perfect place for wealthy residents, like Hector and Marsha Gladwell, to build and rebuild their homes.

Hector Gladwell

Ours went up quicker than anyone else's in the neighborhood. It's the best burn we've had since what, 2006?

Marsha Gladwell

Oh my God. Probably, yeah.

Joe Randazzo

We're at an interesting point in what we do because we satirize the news, we satirize corporate news. Corporate news these days is just so hyper over-the-top that it's almost difficult to satirize it. Like, you watch Fox News with all of the flashing graphics and everything, moving in and out, and women who are more made-up than Tammy Faye Baker or somebody that you might see in a beauty pageant in the South, trying to tell you the news with graphics and music and soaring this and that. It's hard to top, it's hard to satirize. It's comical as it is already. I think it's based in this idea that Americans are unintelligent, Americans do not want to be given facts or data, they want infotainment, they want nuggets that they can easily digest. They want flashy colors that move in and out. They want beautiful women and they want short little snippets and they want stories about puppies, and that's all that the American people want. I think this is the idea that people who are running these corporate media believe that they are putting out a product. And that they're putting out an entertainment product and that the American people don't have the intelligence or attention span to watch anything more thoughtful or deliberate.

David Barrodale

...about closing holes I mean, what about the solider hole? How about the energy hole? I can't believe that closing the money hole is even on the table.

Nancy Fichandler

Don't close the money hole!

Blonde Female

Why are you pushing this pro-hole agenda? Is the money hole lobby paying you?

David Barrodale

I resent that accusation! I do not take money from special interests and if I did I would throw it right in the hole because I am a patriot.

Nancy Fichandler

If you love America, you throw money in its hole!

Joe Randazzo

So it's really refreshing I think for people to watch something like the Daily Show or read something like The Onion that doesn't take itself so seriously and cuts to the quick. Doesn't mess around with making everything sound all nice and official and sort of gets right to what the issue really is, even if it's done in a joking manner it's often more truthful than what you're going to be able to read on the news itself.