LAST NIGHT: Meet the Onion Editors @ Drexel, 5/11

Writer Ryan Carey provides insight on the Meet the Onion Editors discussion at Drexel last night.

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LAST NIGHT: Meet the Onion Editors @ Drexel, 5/11

POSTED: Thursday, May 12, 2011, 11:00 AM

Filed Under: Last Night

Roasting Biden

In last week's Agenda section, Kala Jamison wrote about the Meet the Onion Editors discussion at Drexel. This week, Ryan Carey went to check it out.

Onion editors Chad Nackers and Joe Garden gave a presentation at Drexel's Bossone Mitchell Auditorium last night. The chat consisted of two parts: (1) a slideshow featuring images and video from The Onion and its various outlets, and (2) a half hour Q&A.

The slideshow churned up LOLs, especially with their cocky Joe Biden series (pictured). However, it was basically just a comedy PowerPoint presentation, featuring material that much of the audience has already seen. The more interesting insight came at the Q&A.

I asked them whether they view their role as editors of The Onion as either a reflection of the zeitgeist or a nihilistic joke machine for cash.

Garden replied, "I think at The Onion we're cynical, but at heart we're all sort of optimistic. We don't trust anything really and we don't have a lot of faith in authority, but at the same time we want things to work out for the best and we want people to get along." Nackers added, "Sometimes our optimism comes out in a story, when we say the worst thing ever is gonna happen or things have gotten SO bad... to kinda show that it really hasn't. I think it is a reflection of the zeitgeist, since it's not really a tight news cycle. We kinda go with the ebb and flow of what's happening and we try to capture that more than specific events."

Garden slipped in, "We're not nihilists, we don't reject everything, but we reject a lot of things..."

For those who missed it, the event was filmed and will be aired on DUTV soon.

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