Last night I was watching our local NBC news station, and the reporter brought up the story of a 14 year old student who allegedly tried to poison a substitute teacher. He spiked her water bottle with cleaning solution. The teacher took a sip and spit it out.
And how was the story introduced?
“A 14 year old male student is in hot water for allegedly poisoning his teacher’s water.”
God I hate that. And it happens all the time. For example, on February 9, police officer John Feder (better known as standup comic Club Soda Kenny) was suspended without pay for making offensive jokes in his act. I’ll let you guess how the news introduced this story.
Ready for the answer?
Cop With A Gig As A Stand Up Comic Finds It’s No Longer A Laughing Matter
When the story broke, I was listening to Opie and Anthony. They had clips from all the local NY media outlets, and every single one of them found a way to work in the “No Laughing Matter” angle.
I understand that news stations try to inject a little humor into their coverage, but why do they ALWAYS use bad puns? Do people actually enjoy this?
Here’s one I saw today: “Capping Sugary Drinks May Be Key to Kids’ Weight Loss”. You see where they went with that? It’s a drink, and you can put a cap on it. Brilliant.
I guarantee that if you watch your local news tonight, you’ll see at least 5 examples of this. I’m going to keep track tonight.