I had a friend who studied journalism, and in his last year of school he was lucky enough to land an internship with The Onion. What he quickly learned was The Onion's internships are some of the most difficult in the industry. While other publications have to capture the facts surrounding a story, The Onion has to capture the zeitgeist of a time and place for their stories to be believable. The amount of research that goes into their stories is staggering.
As a fan of The Onion, I can't say I'm a fan of their new layout, even if it's more representative of other news sites. It's really messed up my ability to browse through American Voices.
Given the popularity of news-as-entertainment such as The Daily Show, Colbert Report, or Last Week Tonight, it would seem theres room for an online edition of the same schtick. Hopefully Onion Inc gives that a try!
I consume these through youtube, so technically there are already competitors in this space.