On Background with The Onion

​Fireside chats with Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion, and Zoe Schiffer, Director of Business and Industry at WIRED

​The current discourse about communications is too dominated by old-school awards circuit-y tributes, inside-baseball career moves, and other trivialities. There’s very little strategic analysis, no interrogation of media incentives, few lessons about failure. Other areas of business, from finance to marketing, even HR, enjoy mainstream scrutiny and intellectual framing. That imbalance shapes industry perception, whether we acknowledge it or not.

​Today, The Onion and WIRED are among the few institutions speaking truth to power, one through reported journalism, the other through satire, both with rare clarity and seriousness of purpose. In conversations with Ben and Zoe, we'll discuss how they do it, satire vs. journalism in the age of Elon and Trump, what's working and what's broken in media, and what it all means for the people and companies trying to operate in this environment.

​Doors open at 5:00pm for drinks. We'll kick off conversations promptly at 6:00pm.

​We need more forums where communications is examined as a consequential discipline. This will be an invitation-only discussion designed for real conversation — the second event in the series.

​We hope you’ll join us.