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No joke: Report says The Onion discussing sale

The satirical publication has seen layoffs and high-level exec departures, and now Gawker says the company is in negotiations to sell.

Greg Sandoval Former Staff writer
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. Based in New York, Sandoval is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at @sandoCNET.
Greg Sandoval

This just in: things are so miserable in the news business that you can't even turn a buck in the fake news business.

The Onion, a print publication that satirizes the news, is for sale, according to a story that appeared Wednesday in Gawker.

Citing an unnamed source, the blog reported that The Onion is "in negotiations to sell to a large media company." Gawker said the source did not know how far the negotiations had progressed.

In recent months, The Onion has appeared to suffer the same advertising and high print-cost troubles as "real" news publications. The Onion's leaders just oversaw broad cost cutting that included discontinuing the printing of editions in San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as laying off editors in those areas.

Some top managers have also left, including Sean Mills, the publication's former president.