About 150 people gathered in Robertson Auditorium Thursday afternoon for the Ross School of Business’ fourth annual John H. Mitchell Lecture Series, welcoming Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion and business leader, with work experience at organizations ranging from Hulu and Esquire to The Daily Beast and NBC.
The lecture series, free and open to the public, features lecturers ranging from filmmakers to entrepreneurs in creative fields with a focus on ethics. In 2022, the inaugural lecture hosted filmmaker Fanshen Cox, then Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz and Dr. Rumman Chowdhury in the following years. Sharon Matusik, Business School dean and professor, moderated the lecture, which focused specifically on ethics in journalism this year.
Collins recounted his experience in the journalism industry, citing a revealing experience from his time at The Daily Beast, where he learned some people put profit over responsible reporting.
“It was all people who were early to the game of disinformation,” Collins said. “They realized you could make money in this to build a following and these people wound up being what I now like to call the Trump administration.”
As a satirical media company, Collins said The Onion offers vastly unique but important journalistic content. The company originated as a weekly print publication in Madison, Wisconsin, but is now based in Chicago. Collins said he values the unrelenting nature of Onion writers, which motivated his mission to prevent Elon Musk’s attempt to buy it in 2019.
“They don’t let anybody tell them what to say,” Collins said. “I’m so impressed by that, and I saw that they were very for sale. And I also knew that Elon Musk had tried to buy The Onion before … So I knew that if it was for sale, he’d probably kind of be interested in it. So then I tried as hard as I could to rescue this thing.”
Collin cited a recent New York Times article about AI chatbots experiencing anxiety, and said he sees a disconnect between what is important to readers and what news outlets are covering, which creates distrust in the media.
“Right now, the gap between what’s being reported as the news and what’s being reported as a shared reality, it’s pretty wide and far off from what actually is,” Collins said. “I just think that you are in a moment right now where a lot of the people that you’re supposed to be trusting are scared.”
Collins also said it is important for newspapers to provide multiple channels for audiences to interact with their content, especially in an evolving digital age. The Onion re-established its Onion News Network, an offshoot of the satire company in TV form.
“We try to live in a place where we do reach everybody where they are,” Collins said. “That’s why we brought back the Onion News Network. That in itself is driving a lot of young people who don’t know who we are back into their world. So it can’t just be the paper, but I do love it.”
Although journalistic ethics was a large part of the lecture, Business graduate student James Reed said he hoped for more discussion on how The Onion ties humor into their business model.
“I’d want to hear about how they embrace humor, because a lot of companies don’t want to be funny or easygoing,” Reed said. “So I’m curious how they internally embrace humor at the company. News is usually scary, and not happy, and serious because of all the bad things happening so I guess it’s hard to be loose and fun with it.”
Information senior Julia Coffman said she appreciated the lecture’s blend of humor and seriousness.
“I thought that it was so light hearted and had comedic undertones,” Coffman said. “And there were laughs, but it was also very real and kind of dove into some of the critical things that people should be paying attention to as the media kind of becomes more and more controlled by the government.”
Coffman also emphasized the importance of having a lecture series focused on ethics.
“I think that a lot of people would give up their ethics for a job because they think that would be the right answer,” Coffman said. “And especially in the current job market I think a lot of us are scared of not having jobs, or things changing rapidly and jobs being at risk. So I think that’s huge, and having the encouragement to stand up for what you believe in, regardless of what your boss may do or may think is critical.”
Daily Staff Reporter Kayla Lugo can be reached at klugo@umich.edu.
