Does anyone know who models for the photos used to illustrate “news stories” on The Onion?
Is it the writers, or do they have special satire models that they use? I guess they use the occasional stock photo, but lots of them have clearly been taken especially for the article.
IIRC, for the “man on the street” ones, they we just some random people that were walking aound Madison that day. I had a friend who they used in an article (crazy japaneze exchange student) who knew was friends with one writers or something.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=39778&highlight=Onion
The answer should be in here somewhere. 
The ‘man on the street’ pictures are always the same people, so those people who happened to be walking around the right place at the right time now have unlimited fame.
What about the columnist pictures?
Yes, I always liked the guy at the top-left. This week he’s “Harold Mercer, Systems Analyst”.
I’m guessing some of those are library pics (like tha H-Dog, maybe). I’d love to get some answers though…
My brother was a college roommate to the publishers of The Onion. Back when the editorial offices were still in Madison, Wisconsin, the people in the pictures were often staffers, writers, friends of staffers and writers, wanna-be writers and staffers.
The columnist photos are usually taken from stock photo suppliers who have already obtained clearance from the subjects.
heh. One of them is always a “systems analyst.”
One of the writers came to our school and had a very interesting Q&A session (in addition to an onion eating contest). This was one of the questions, and he said basically what has been answered already. You can just buy a whole collection of generic photos to use as you choose and that’s what they mainly used.
I remember that one! She was cute.
Including Jean Teasdale?
I’ve always wondered who Jean Teasdale was. It looks like the yearbook photo of the class nerd.