The Onion - News That's Actually Interesting

The plethora of environmental problems has been a hot topic recently, making it a perfect target for the satirical news site The Onion. Rather than using the traditional angle of taking steps to preserve the environment, the writer creates a story in which the presence of more environmentally-friendly wrapping has led to an increase in littering – essentially, litter is beneficial to Earth.

An important part of satirical writing is to make it obvious; the audience should never misinterpret it for truth. The most common way to do this is to exaggerate. This article is outrageous from the beginning, because a reader with any sort of connection to the real world knows that litter is in no way a good thing, yet the story says otherwise. Never again, it argues, will anyone have to worry about picking up trash or turning off unused lights.

Concise sentences and specific details help the article seem more like “real news.” The story does not get bogged down in descriptions and flowery language but is delivered like a professional article. It even incorporates the journalistic technique of alternating informative paragraphs with direct quotes. Words like “degradation”, “prevalence”, and “culmination” direct the story toward an older, more educated audience. On any other news site, the writing style would fit perfectly.

In some ways, the use of humor is a more powerful medium than a simple bombardment of facts. Instead of making the reader feel guilty, a story from The Onion causes him to view his own actions as absurd.