It’s a joke, right?

I remember being warned by an assistant city editor once to never even call a story file by anything I wouldn’t want to see entered into evidence in a libel trial. Knowing that, and knowing how journalists have a macabre sense of humour, I found this interesting. Broadcast journalists caught talking about a candidate’s supporters including child molesters. And their boss says it was all just reporters “speculating,” and the reporters weren’t deciding ahead of time what the story would be.

So, does this mean we’ve got to start watching ourselves when we’re joking around?