But actually, one of the things that lent it some credence was that somebody went and created an actual Yelp site for the AbortionPlex-we didn't solicit this, they just did this of their own accord, organically-and hundreds of people who were in on the joke started giving it thumbs up or thumbs down and writing reviews like "It was great! My husband and I are going to go there every year for our anniversary" and stuff like that, which sort of gave texture to this world we created that we never could have done on our own. I think in case, he's a pandering guy who's not that intelligent, who thought that something obscenely ridiculous like the AbortionPlex could ever possibly be real. I think it does to a degree speak to-especially during the Bush Administration and the rise of FOX News, not that Rupert Murdoch is an evil person, per se-this sort of reinventing news as entertainment that that has really taken hold in American culture. That's our formula that's the lens through which we observe the world-that's where 90% of our comedy comes from-so when we do it really well, sometimes people who aren't familiar with us take it seriously. How blurry is the line between real news and fake news in the current media environment? JR: That one was really wonderful, because the whole point of the AbortionPlex story itself was to try to give as much credence to what we imagined every right-wing nut job's worst nightmare of Planned Parenthood could be and to explore that and give it The Onion treatment, which is to present it in a very dry, authoritative way. On other occasions The New York Times and Fox News have reported on your articles as fact. John Fleming of Louisiana mistakenly thought a story in The Onion about a planned "AbortionPlex" was genuine. I majored in journalism at Emerson and I worked for NPR, but I'm definitely a comedian first. CS: At The Onion, are you a journalist first or a comedian? JR: I come from a little bit of a journalism background. I think a responsibility to the broader social conversation is genetically encoded in The Onion as an institution and that rubs off on the writers, but on a daily basis Onion writers aren't thinking about their responsibility or taking themselves very seriously. But in order to get to the good jokes that make The Onion successful, all the writers have to do is make each other laugh. CS: How seriously does The Onion take itself? JR: I think it's understood that there's this bedrock responsibility to speak truth to power, to call out bullsh-t when The Onion sees it or hears it, and to always try to fall on the right side of issues, to never be against the victim-and not to try to maintain objectivity but to keep any target open, so Democrats are just as open to ridicule as Republicans. These are the worst qualities of humankind that people who are being put forth to represent all of humankind are embodying, so that inherently is a tragically hilarious juxtaposition. City & State: What's so funny about politics? Joe Randazzo: You have a high concentration of egotistical people who oftentimes put their worst qualities forward to get noticed and to be recognized, and this lack of compassion, humanism and altruism often leads to success in politics. City & State editor Morgan Pehme talks with Randazzo about his tenure at the helm of the popular satiric publication and asks him if there's anything funny about Andrew Cuomo. After four years as editor in chief of The Onion, comedian Joe Randazzo is leaving the paper, and America's self-proclaimed "finest news source" is relocating its offices from New York to Chicago.
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