I know they at least use to have a few coin operated newspaper vending machines on street corners in Philadelphia. Not sure about elsewhere, I only ever noticed them in Philly.
Are you sure they were coin-op? Everywhere I've ever seen them, they were free. They were definitely in a ... well, I don't know what you call the newspaper distribution boxes, but they were in one (presumably to protect against rain and such), but they were always free to take everywhere I've seen.
They very well may have been free, I'm not sure. That same general sort of machine though at least.
Are you sure they were coin-op? Everywhere I've ever seen them, they were free. They were definitely in a ... well, I don't know what you call the newspaper distribution boxes, but they were in one (presumably to protect against rain and such), but they were always free to take everywhere I've seen.
They very well may have been free, I'm not sure. That same general sort of machine though at least.
Ah. Well there goes the idea I had in which they charged for it everywhere except DC (which would have been hilarious).
I'll toss in my "isn't life weird?" story... When I was at Madison during that time, I applied at one of the 2 student papers to be a sales rep. I went on to be the Sales Manager for the paper. The guy I won out the job over decided to start the Onion with his friend. You've never heard of me :-( ---- When they first started, their sales tactic was that the paper was a small tabloid -ize, with the entire bottom 3 inc…
Man that's something that would stick with you forever. Ugh, not recognizing opportunities in their infancy always scares me.
Or, to flip this on its head - remember this tale the next time you miss out on a job to 'the other guy'. Perhaps it will be a trigger for your own personal Onion moment.
I'll shed a single tear because I have nostalgia for the print version, but this isn't really such bad news. The Onion has evolved, not died. They grew quite successfully into digital (especially with video & social media), and they're now completing that transition by cutting off what has by now become a vestigial distribution channel.
I dunno, unless The Onion has an incredibly forward-thinking managerial class, then this cutback -- as well as the previous ones (including in its own hometown in Madison, WI) -- are reluctant measures taken in the face of budget shortfalls, i.e. these are cuts to the bone, rather than trimming the fat. And while fat organizations aren't exactly ideal, I think the expectation that the Onion maintains its finest group…
In this case would you rather they allocate budget to a print edition, or use that same allocation for writers?
The OP was about cutting the print edition, and I'm hard pressed to believe there were any articles exclusive to the print edition.
I'll toss in my "isn't life weird?" story... When I was at Madison during that time, I applied at one of the 2 student papers to be a sales rep. I went on to be the Sales Manager for the paper. The guy I won out the job over decided to start the Onion with his friend. You've never heard of me :-( ---- When they first started, their sales tactic was that the paper was a small tabloid -ize, with the entire bottom 3 inc…
Man that's something that would stick with you forever. Ugh, not recognizing opportunities in their infancy always scares me.
Personally, I think he should feel great. There's no guarantee he would have done something so remarkable if he had been the one to lose the job, but he indirectly helped get The Onion started this way.
I dunno, unless The Onion has an incredibly forward-thinking managerial class, then this cutback -- as well as the previous ones (including in its own hometown in Madison, WI) -- are reluctant measures taken in the face of budget shortfalls, i.e. these are cuts to the bone, rather than trimming the fat. And while fat organizations aren't exactly ideal, I think the expectation that the Onion maintains its finest group…
In this case would you rather they allocate budget to a print edition, or use that same allocation for writers? The OP was about cutting the print edition, and I'm hard pressed to believe there were any articles exclusive to the print edition. As some might say, nothing of value was lost.
The latter, of course. My point was that if The Onion is at all like any organization, particularly in print media, then its cutting of the print editions is less a forward-thinking move than a "Shit, well, gotta do what we can to survive"...It's not that cutting to survive is bad, I'm just saying that it's a situation in which what actually survives the cutting still has a major fight to survive ahead of it, and will likely not equal what it was in better days.
Man that's something that would stick with you forever. Ugh, not recognizing opportunities in their infancy always scares me.
Personally, I think he should feel great. There's no guarantee he would have done something so remarkable if he had been the one to lose the job, but he indirectly helped get The Onion started this way.
That's the attitude!
Personally, I just think it's an interesting story I bore people with at cocktail parties.
I think people who are inclined to "start the Onion" tend to do so anyway; he may have done it on the side, or in a slightly different manner, but he would have done something similar. I don't think I really had any direct affect on his life's fate or karma
I was kind of surprised by this. My impression was that they did well in college towns by sucking up all the advertising for local concerts and watering holes. I guess the local revenues weren't enough to offset the costs.
I never even knew the Onion did print. Hell I never even knew they were alive since what, 1988? Damn, I really thought the Onion was just a small little website with funny articles I saw on Reddit once in awhile, but not a widely known website. Sucks, I'd have loved to read a print version of the Onion.
It started out in print, founded back in the late '80s by a couple of students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They were smart and jumped on the web very early (the mid-90s), which helped them build a national audience instead of just a local upper-Midwest one.
Wow. I thought Onion was something people found in the mid 2000s and got viral because it has all the crazy fake but extremely hilarious weekly review. Does the print version makes those fake news or legitimate news report?