In a joint press conference today, editor Cole Bolton and CEO Steve Hannah have announced that The Onion will be ceasing publication immediately immediately, with all staff made redundant, and all assets put up for sale.
Bolton, shaking his head sadly, announced that following the in response to the declaration by the campaign for former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown for New Hampshire (this time) Senate that his opponent is, “A Senator from Massachusetts,” said that satire has been rendered obsolete by reality.
“I knew that it would be John Sununu who would destroy us,” said Bolton, the now former editor. “His continuous innovation in the area of unintentional self parody have always threatened us with obsolescence, and now he has finally made us completely irrelevant.”
John Sununu’s statement introducing Scott Brown at a campaign rally left the staff dumbstruck, with many in tears, even before the announced layoffs.
“We just gotta remind people that he’s coming back to his roots,” former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu told me after the Portsmouth rally. Sununu, in case you have forgotten, was one of Romney’s most ubiquitous and delightfully crotchety fsurrogates during the presidential campaign in 2012. In true Sununu fashion, he not only defended Brown’s alleged Live Free or Die bona fides; he’s gone on the attack. To him, it is Shaheen, not Brown, who’s the real outsider.
“She votes with Elizabeth Warren. She votes with [Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed] Markey. She is the third senator from Massachusetts,” Sununu told supporters at the Portsmouth rally before introducing Brown. “Scott’s happiest days as a young man were in New Hampshire. … So it’s going to be great to have a senator that was born virtually in the state of New Hampshire. Jean Shaheen, by the way, was born in Missouri!”
Did you catch how Sununu cleverly described Brown as “virtually” born in New Hampshire? He was actually born in Maine, which for Brown’s campaign is close enough for government work and has the great advantage of being closer than Missouri and not being Massachusetts. It is also rather audacious to paint Shaheen as a “senator from Massachusetts,” since Brown quite literally was, and very much wanted to remain, a senator from Massachusetts.
In related news, the General Manager and Editor-In-Chief of The Onion‘s AV Club, Josh Modell has announced, “I got nothing,” that they will shut down their studio, and cease producing satirical films, and simply re-broadcast cable news stories.