By Sarah Dolan, News Correspondent

‘Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet’ and ‘Black Guy Asks Nation For Change.” Not surprisingly, these headlines were not taken from The Boston Globe but from satirical news source The Onion.’
Two staff writers from The Onion brought their headlines to Blackman Auditorium Monday night during a lecture presented by the Council for University Programming (CUP).
Daniel Mirk, a staff writer for The Onion newspaper, and John Harris, a staff writer for the Onion News Network, guided the audience through a slideshow of some of the infamous headlines, articles and videos of the satirical news source.
‘Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing was Faked,’ ‘Obama Victory: The Aftermath,’ and ‘Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard’ were just some of the outrageous headlines and videos that had the crowd laughing.
Mirk and Harris began their presentation to the near-capacity crowd with a fake history of the newspaper, saying it was supposedly founded in 1756 and that Benjamin Franklin’s inventions were listed in one of the first issues.
A satirical newspaper self-described as ‘America’s Finest News Source,’ The Onion has an online and print version of the paper as well as an online-only fake news network, the Onion News Network, and a radio program.
The Onion has had a consistent fan base since it was founded in 1988, appealing to a generation whose main news source is often ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.’
‘We try not to take ourselves too seriously,’ Harris told The News.
Senior psychology major Sean Johnston said The Onion influenced his extracurricular activities while he was Northeastern.
‘I’ve always been a big fan of the Onion, I have just always appreciated their sense of humor.’ It is actually what made me join the Northeastern Times New Roman,’ said who said he contributed to the campus humor magazine his sophomore and middler years.
The event was presented by CUP as part of its lecture series that has recently brought in speakers such as ex-Patriots linebacker Tedi Bruschi and Michael Uslan, the producer of the Batman movies.
‘For the beginning of the year I wanted something lighter, not as serious,’ said Brian Dorfman, lecture chair of CUP.’ ‘I know a lot of people are Onion fans on campus.’
Harris and Mirk laughed along with the audience at the Onion’s different coverage of events such as business, foreign affairs, last fall’s election as well as celebrity deaths from the past year.
One of the crowd favorites was a piece on the Onion News Network about Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson being euthanized by her parents because she had broken her leg. Mirk and Harris said they were satirizing the treatment of young gymnasts as prized racehorses, but chuckled that the video caused a stir on YouTube.
Viewers began to post wondering why Shawn Johnson had been euthanized, expressing their outrage and confusion.’ The buzz around the fake news video only ceased when Johnson posted ‘I am not dead,’ on her own Twitter site.
‘We always want to do jokes that are making fun of a target that we feel is worthy of being picked on,’ said Harris.’ ‘
Harris and Mirk said they enjoyed the friendly Northeastern crowd and said they like to put in some of their own personal favorites into the presentation.
Harris said his new favorite video is ‘Breaking News:’ Bat Loose in Congress,’ a C-Span parody about a bat flying around Congress and representatives discussing how to get rid of it. Harris said sometimes there are jokes the staff finds hilarious, but as a writer, he just doesn’t know how they will deliver to the viewers. Yet, the audience laughed throughout the video.
Mirk said that there is some self-doubt at times, when writing the hundreds of jokes that make up the newspaper.
‘You have to trust the 10 people that are in the room, beause they are there for a reason,’ said Mirk.
Harris and Mirk concluded their slideshow with a question and answer session and a book signing of the Onion’s ‘Our Dumb World,’ which was released in 2007.
‘I thought it was hilarious,’ said Carly Commiso, a freshman international affairs major. ‘I really wasn’t sure what to expect going into it, but it was really funny.’