Last night, I learned about the creative editing process at the Onion, the uber-popular weekly satirical newspaper. Apparently, every Monday, the team comes in with lots and lots and lots of story ideas. If at least 2 people agree the ideas should be published, the story survives until the next day.
If the story is not up to snuff, it is DOA.
Amazingly, the team can look at 600 story ideas to come up with 20 story ideas that will make it into the final newspaper.
That means there’s a 97% failure rate at the Onion.
That statistic is somehow comforting. The Onion encourages failure — lots and lots of failure — in order to come up with story ideas that will make people grab the paper, read it, and give a little chuckle at headlines like …
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