Will 'The Onion' dare to satirize on Dispatch, sacred cows in Columbus deal?

FRENCH LAKE, Wisconsin (CGE) - Ohio's self-proclaimed "Greatest Hometown Newspaper," The Columbus Dispatch, has ruled the roost in central Ohio since its first issue was published in 1871. For 140 years, the paper that's one of the family jewels in the media crown of the Dispatch Broadcast Group that includes Ohio local and statewide TV stations, local radio stations, several smaller niche publications  and a TV station in Indiana has wielded great influence at all levels of Ohio government. 

 

 

In 1985, the Wolfe family, the power brokers behind the Dispatch Broadcast Group, literally ran the Columbus Citizen-Journal out of business when it refused to use its printing presses to print its competitor's paper any more.

 

So when The Dispatch announced Thursday that it has entered into a marketing agreement with The Onion to distribute it in Columbus, mainly in and around Ohio State University's 64,000 student central campus, one can only wonder if the editors and writers, whose satire is demonstrated daily with totally fake news stories that have on occasion been taken seriously by otherwise serious leaders, will pull its punches with its marketing sponsor or whether it will take off the gloves and take the Dispatch, and some of Columbus' most sacred power cows, on? 

 

The Dispatch reported Thursday that free weekly tabloid will be published by The Dispatch’s parent company, starting on Oct. 6.

 

Under a three-year operating agreement, the story read, The Onion "will retain sole control over editorial content," while The Dispatch Printing Company assumes business-management responsibilities for the publication, including advertising sales, printing and distribution. No one expected financial details to be disclosed, and they weren't.

 

In the morning Dispatch, made possible by the Columbus CJ going out of business that cleared the way for the evening Dispatch to shift to a morning news publication - because that's where the money is - 25,000 copies of The Onion’s Columbus edition will be available each Thursday at 562 locations throughout the city. It was reported that the publication will feature The A.V. Club, a nonsatirical entertainment section.

 

Amy Bishop, advertising manager for The Dispatch Printing Company’s niche-publications division said The Onion is an attractive advertising vehicle for local businesses looking to connect with the more than 110,000 people who attend college in central Ohio. Her unit also produces Columbus Alive, Capital Style, Columbus Parent, Crave and Fronteras de la Noticia.

 

“The Onion’s irreverent satire really resonates with college students, and it’s helped The Onion grow into one of the most-recognizable humor brands in the country,” Bishop said in the article.

 

“The local print edition will put The Onion directly in the hands of Columbus fans and help our advertisers reach those readers where they live, eat and hang out on campus and in surrounding neighborhoods,” Bishop said

 

The Dispatch reported that the Columbus deal "mirrors deals the parody publication has struck with media companies in more than a dozen other markets" that include the publishers of the  Chicago Tribune, The Denver Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman.

 

Carrie Palmer, director of franchising for The Onion, which with the addition of Columbus will have a combined weekly circulation of 495,000, said, “It’s been an exciting year, seeing The Onion expand to new markets.” Palmer said the publication is "thrilled to have our newspaper distributed in Ohio for the first time. What better place to begin than with the Buckeyes?”

 

The history of the Onion began in 1988, when a student-produced newspaper took off at the University of Wisconsin. Since then, The Onion has grown into a multimedia brand, reaching fans through print, television, radio and online outlets, the Dispatch reported.

 

 

The Columbus Dispatch, a historically reliable Republican, pro-business and anti-government newspaper, except when it comes to government in the City of Columbus, deviated from its generally consistent history of supporting Republican governors when, in 2006, it endorsed Democratic Congressman Ted Strickland over his radical right-wing GOP opponent, Ken Blackwell.

 

The paper's last endorsement of a Democrat as a Presidential candidate, was for the re-election of Woodrow Wilson in 1916, sources report. Even in 2004, after years of a disastrous war of choice by then president George W. Bush, The Dispatch finally endorsed him of his war-hero challenge, Democrat John Kerry, following a special trip on Air Force One for John F. Wolfe, the newspaper's publisher, and Michael F. Curtin, now associate publisher emeritus. Curtin was tapped to be the front man for the anti-casino issue.

 

During the debate over whether an amendment to the Ohio Constitution, allowing casinos at specific locations in four Ohio cities including Columbus should be approved, The Dispatch, whose parent company is a partner in a hockey arena and a downtown entertainment district in which it sets, wrote articles slanted against Issue 3, editorialized against it and put its former president in charge of a citizens group opposed to it, showed that when it comes to their business purpose versus their position as stewards of the public trust, business wins out. 

 

In last year's race for governor, The Dispatch, which endorsed Strickland four years earlier, pivoted to his GOP challenger, former central Ohio congressman John Kasich, and endorsed Kasich, who won by fewer than 78,000 votes statewide.

 

In the months since Kasich's bill to neuter the power of public sector unions to fund Democratic or non-GOP candidates by limiting their collective bargaining rights to wages, and in some cases safety equipment for police and firefighters, The Dispatch has backed Kasich at ever turn, even though it remained virtually silent in whittling down the payments Columbus government makes to its employees on health insurance and pension benefits, two areas where city largess has been largely unquestioned over many decades.

 

It will be interesting to watch to see if The Onion takes on other sacred Columbus cows like Lesley Wexner, founder and chairman of The Limited, or which side it will come down on regarding the latest city confab over whether the Columbus Bluejackets, a National Hockey League franchise brought to the city by John McConnell, the late founder of Worthington Industries, one of several power players in the community, will get a better deal from its landlord, Nationwide Insurance's real estate arm, a partner with the Dispatch in the arena and the Arena District, or whether it will editorialize for government, either the city of the county or both, to ride to the rescue with taxpayer dollars, spending by government that The Dispatch is against when it comes to SB 5, the referendum on Kasich's collective bargaining bill, but could be for when it comes to making hometown power players happy.

 

The media power wielded by the parent company of The Dispatch is intact only because the Wolfe family was granted an exemption rules by the Federal Communications Commission based on the argument that their ownership pre-dated the FCC regulations.

 

Reports say the circulation of The Dispatch is 199,524 daily and 334,422 on Sunday.