The Onion Leaves a Bad Taste

Posted At: March 4, 2013 1:50 P.M.
by Lindsey Green

News satirist The Onion is known for toeing the thin line between funny and downright offensive. The publication has made a name for itself with raunchy, politically incorrect articles and taboo topics, and its social media outlets follow the same wavelength.

However, its staff didn’t just toe the line with their tweet about Quvenzhané Wallis during last week’s Oscars ceremony — they ran, jumped and leaped far past it. There are plenty of funny inappropriate jokes out there, but calling the 9-year-old Best Actress nominee a crude word is not one of them.

When I first saw the tweet, I was confident that The Onion’s Twitter handle had been hacked. I didn’t think twice about considering that such a widely circulated publication would think something so deplorable was acceptable for a public joke. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

The immediate backlash was so overwhelming that The Onion removed the tweet within the hour. Even with such a quick removal, the social media faux pas is far from forgotten. Responses to this PR nightmare can be found on most major news sites, but shockingly not all of them have condemned the incident.

David Carr of The New York Times is a highly respected writer and has more than 400,000 followers on Twitter, yet he didn’t seem to find anything wrong with the offending tweet. Call me conservative, but I don’t find it “edgy” or “funny” to call an innocent 9-year-old girl carrying a purse shaped like a puppy such a derogatory name.

With all of the flack that reporters get for their work, it is important for the media to understand their role as opinion leaders within their communities. They should not cause another round of backlash on top of an already unfortunate event. Making off-color jokes about a young girl is never in good taste and neither is making light of a serious situation by perpetuating the jovial attitude.

Although The Onion’s CEO issued a deeply apologetic statement the morning after the incident, the publication still has a long way to go before its readers and the general public will forget about such a poor choice. Social media should be used to build up an organization’s image, not tear down its esteem. I truly hope that The Onion and other satirical publications will learn from this mistake. It never hurts to think before you tweet so that those 140 characters don’t destroy your reputation.