The Onion is a comedy institution — and like everything else in media, it went on a pure nightmare hell ride in the 2010s. We could do an entire episode on the G/O Media calamity, but the short version is: A bunch of friends just managed to buy The Onion, and they're busy relaunching the website, going back to print, and, clearly, having a blast doing it. CEO Ben Collins and chief product officer Danielle Strle joined me to explain how that even works in 2024.

Links: 

• The Onion sold by G/O Media | The New York Times
• Sam Reich on revamping the game show - and Dropout’s success | NPR
• Platformer’s Casey Newton on surviving the great media collapse | Decoder
• Craig Silverman: Digital advertising’s structure has been weaponized | Digiday
• US Warns a Gaza Ceasefire Would Only Benefit Humanity | The Onion
• The Truth is Paywalled but the Lies are Free | Current Affairs
• A newsroom expands and The Onion is out again on paper | Washington Post
• Report: Nuclear War Sounds Fucking Amazing Right Now | The Onion
• Google defends AI search results after they told us to put glue on pizza | The Verge
• Jury awards nearly $1B to Sandy Hook families in Alex Jones defamation case | CNN
• ‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens | The Onion

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23989633

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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Jesse Thorn has been podcasting for so long it was called radio. Over time he turned his career into a business - Maximum Fun, a network of eclectic pop culture shows like Bullseye; My Brother, My Brother and Me; and Judge John Hodgman — and relied primarily on listener donations to fund it.

But, as Thorn tells Vox’s Peter Kafka, running a business was running him down, and he didn’t want to sell the company to a Spotify or Sirius.

So he found a unique solution: He turned Maximum Fun into a worker-owned co-op. That means Thorn still owns a piece of the company he built over two decades, but so do his former employees, who are now his co-workers. And he thinks other media companies can and should do this, too.

Featuring: Jesse Thorn (@JesseThorn), Founder of Maximum Fun

Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode

More to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.

About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us.

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Josh Topolsky, CEO and editor in chief of The Outline, talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about the importance of good internet-native design for both advertising and editorial content. Topolsky dismisses the idea that everything publishers put out will move behind paywalls, arguing instead that when ads are done well, they can engage readers and support free content. Most of the time, though, online media companies have forced boring ads on their audiences, who have learned to ignore them. He also talks about his past life as a music producer, picking a fight with Mike Bloomberg and what it's like to raise money when you have a reputation as someone who can be difficult to work with.

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Alex and PJ take calls from anyone, about anything, for 48 hours straight.

Thank Yous

Adam Quinn (for setting up our phone system)

Peter Nelson (for his excellent horn playing)

The Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder (for going above and beyond this week)

Matt Farley

Jorge Just

Austin Thompson

Build Buildings

Everyone who called

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On this week's [NOUN] Josh chats with Ivar Vong, CTO of The Outline and a [ADJECTIVE] software genius. Ivar tells Josh a [ADJECTIVE] story about his journey from [NOUN] to professional photographer to mastermind behind the [NOUN] of The Marshall Project and The Outline, an amazing, [ADJECTIVE], awarding-winning site. So nerds, sit back as Josh [ADVERB] talks to Ivar about code, [NOUN], mad libs, and Ikea. Episode 92 is pure [ADJECTIVE]!

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