Despite the hopes of many University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) students, The Onion was not named after their student center.  "People always ask questions about where the name The Onion came from," said President Sean Mills in an interview with David Shankbone, "and when I recently asked Tim Keck, who was one of the founders, he told me the name—I’ve never heard this story about ‘see you at the un-yun’—he said it was literally that his Uncle said he should call it The Onion when he saw him and Chris Johnson eating an onion sandwich.  They had literally just cut up the onion and put it on bread."  According to Editorial Manager Chet Clem, their food budget was so low when they started the paper that they were down to white bread and onions.
Long before The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Heck and Johnson envisioned a publication that would parody the news—and news reporting—when they were students at UW in 1988.  Since its inception, The Onion has become a veritable news parody empire, with a print edition, a website that drew 5,000,000 unique visitors in the month of October, personal ads, a 24 hour news network, podcasts, and a recently launched world atlas called Our Dumb World.  Al Gore and General Tommy Franks casually rattle off their favorite headlines (Gore's was when The Onion reported he and Tipper were having the best sex of their lives after his 2000 Electoral College defeat).  Many of their writers have gone on to wield great influence on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's news parody shows.  
And we are sorry to break the news to all you amateur headline writers: your submissions do not even get read.
Below is David Shankbone's interview with Chet Clem and Sean Mills about the news empire that has become The Onion. 
David Shankbone  How do you decide on the stories?
DS:  So you don’t have writers coming up with a story and headline, but you will instead have a team of writers choosing the best headlines and then assign it to a particular writer who was not necessarily involved?
DS:  It seems like some publications, like AM New York, always have a Britney Spears story; is there anything similar with The Onion where they continually revisit a topic or person?
DS:  In an interview with Terry Gross, Stephen Colbert said of his time at Second City that they had decided on not doing political humor and, in particular, hackneyed political humor such as Ted Kennedy drinking jokes.  They felt it was overdone, mean-spirited and not funny.  Do your writers have similar rules of thumb?
DS:  When you are going through the headlines, is it just you guys sitting around trying to crack each other up?
DS:  It’s more analytical and clinical?
DS:  If someone is continually telling unfunny jokes, do you eventually fire them?
DS:  Who are the people on the street, the “American Voices”?
DS:  They are such a perfect representation of a broad spectrum of people, that it’s funny that you found them all randomly in just one day.
DS:  Have you heard if it has affected their lives?
DS:  Are there certain columnists who are reader favorites?  Are there columnists where you receive consistently positive or consistently negative responses to?
DS:  How did he die?
DS:  You had a big reaction from the readers upset that Herbert Kornfeld was dead?
DS:  So there is no columnist that people write in and say that they aren’t funny, or that they are boring—
DS:  Kelly?
DS:  Kelly is actually Ward Sutton, correct?
DS:  For a long time, that cartoon confused me, which perhaps speaks to the humor of it.  I thought it was a real right-wing Christian Zionist syndicated cartoonist who truly exists and that you all were putting it in The Onion out of a sense of irony.  
DS:  How does your graphics department find the people for news stories and come up with the images?
DS:  Are the images created using professional models or people on the street?
DS:  How do you approach people?  Do you ask them if they want to be in an Onion article?
DS:  One of my favorites is of a troubled teen whose parents are always arguing and it shows them shooting the double bird.  So your graphics department will set up the scene and direct them to do that?
DS:  How do you decide when going through the headlines what will be fleshed out as a full story and what goes into the “News in Headlines” section?
DS:  What are some topics you have come across that people almost always say, “Oohh, let’s not do that, that’s going into territory we don’t want to go into”?
DS: What are some of those?
DS:  What are your no-no words?
DS:  Can you give us two?
DS:  Why would Furby be on there?
DS:  When your stories are taken as real—such as your story about the child who, after reading Harry Potter, decided to practice magic since she found out the Bible is just a bunch of ‘boring lies’—
DS:  Do you do anything about that or do you think it’s just hysterical?
DS:  Is there any one group that does not like The Onion?  Evangelicals?  Gays?   Any particular subculture?
DS:  Do you ever receive hate mail?
DS:  What is generally the theme of those letters?
DS:  Do you get any reaction from public figures and politicians?
DS:  Did he say that story was spot on?
DS:  Speaking of federal issues, what is the status on the use of the Presidential Seal?
DS:  But you actually did ask formal approval to use the seal.  Did that come through or did it just die in the water?
DS:  So you actually received approval?
DS:  You have always asserted that you don’t need formal approval to use it in parody; that you were only asking for approval as a courtesy?
DS:  What is your readership?  Since you are a free weekly without hard subscribers, and then you have the Internet site and podcasts, how do you determine your readership?
DS:  Similar to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, your readership has to be informed to be in on the jokes.  How do you feel about being seen as a real news source?
DS:  You guys are always coming out with new features, whether it is a podcast, a newscast, a sports section.  Is there anything under development right now?
DS:  When things like the September 11 attacks happen, how do you gauge when is the time to start addressing it through parody?
DS:  I mean anything that is a national horror, like Hurricane Katrina.
DS:  It’s more of an instinctual process that you all go through?
DS:  What is the status of The Onion movie?
DS:  And quietly—
DS:  What’s the idea behind the Onion News Network?  
DS:  How much do the writers and editors on the print side inform the news network side?
DS:  Many of the writers for The Onion have gone on to Daily Show and Colbert.  Is there any collusion that you guys ever do, or a relationship that is fostered?
DS:  Is there ever a story that has divided the staff, something the writers look back on and say, “Remember ‘Old Soul Goes to Cobbler’ and that whole issue?!”   Something where half of the people thought it should never have been done and the other half thought it was really great?
DS:  Do you think your writers are more optimistic or pessimistic about American culture?
Rory Covey:  I was curious about how much unsolicited material you guys get bombarded with?
DS:  Do you have a top ten list of the worst solicited ideas?  Does anyone keep track of the really bad stuff that is submitted?
DS:  Is there anyone who has been famous at The Onion for submitting over and over again their unsolicited material?  
DS:  Have you ever taken an unsolicited idea?
DS:  Could you imagine if I pulled out an illustrated journal full of brilliant ideas right now?
DS:  “DO YOU HAPPEN TO REMEMBER A CERTAIN BOB GOURSE AND HIS 347 SUBMISSIONS?  THAT WAS ME, ASSHOLES!  I’M FUNNY!  LOOK AT ME NOW IN THE FACE AND TELL ME I’M NOT!”

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The Onion: An interview with 'America's Finest News Source'