The Onion is no different than the Daily Show.
Hook young people in with jokes and entertainment, then start plastering them with leftist propaganda.
Websites like Cracked.com, Mental Floss, and Listverse operate along the same lines.
Time-Warner’s Mad (entirely a different beast than Bill Gaines’ or Harvey Kurtzman’s version/vision) has gone online with Cracked-like web content.
Everything I learned about advertising I learned on MADison Avenue (yep that where their offices were).