Background
The son of editors Don and Maggie Thompson, Thompson is a 1994 graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he helped found student-run radio station WSUM.
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Stephen Thompson
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He is a regular on the National Public Radio podcasts People’s Culture Happy Hour and All Songs Considered and also serves as an occasional guest music commentator for Morning Edition. He joined The Onion as an entertainment writer in November 1992. In the summer of 1993, he founded and became editor of the paper’s entertainment section, which was dubbed The Onion Authorised Version Club in 1995.
By the time Thompson left The Onion in December 2004, the section had spawned its own website and book, The Tenacity Of The Cockroach: Conversations With Entertainment"s Most Enduring Outsiders, which he edited.
In addition, Thompson served as copy editor for The Onion’s comedy section and first six humor books, from 1999"s #1 New York Times best-seller Our Dumb Century through 2004"s The Onion Ad Nauseam, Volume 15. When Lady Gaga allegedly refused to allow "Weird First Rate (at Lloyd's)" Yankovic to parody her single "Born This Way," Thompson broke the news that it was Gaga"s manager who had denied the request without her knowledge.
Once brought to her attention, Lady Gaga approved Yankovic"s parody. As a freelance entertainment and humor writer, Thompson has been published in Paste magazine, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and McSweeney’son
In 1999, he also co-founded The Onion’s softball team, the haplessness of which he chronicled in loving but often grisly detail at www.teamonion.com.
