The advertising agency that handles the Nike account for all of North America approached Negativland. They wanted to hire us to do a series of radio ads for Miller Genuine Draft beer. They weren't asking us to be spokespeople or something; we're not that popular. But they wanted us to use our cut-up, collagey, sound-manipulation/found-sound approach to make a bunch of ads. These guys are in their late 20s; they grew up listening to Negativland in college; they think we're just great. These are the same guys who thought it would be cool to put William S. Burroughs in a Nike ad. And relative to the world that they occupy, they are pushing the envelope. God, here we have this ex-junkie homosexual wife-murderer advertising tennis shoes all over the United States, on every television set in every home. And I can see from their perspective how this is, "like, subversive, man." It's really interesting to me how these kinds of guys have talked themselves into this way of thinking. I know it makes sense to them. They approached us, and I think they thought they were giving us this great chance. I've even had friends of mine say, "Why didn't you guys take it; you could have done something subversive!" And my response is, "No, you can't."--Mark Hosler of Negativland, also from an Onion AV Club interview.

Until recently, I wasn't aware that The Onion is also an actual newspaper.