Journalists see the worst of life.
They witness the aftermath of horrific car crashes, talk to family members of fallen soldiers and report on the death of children. While on assignment and speaking with sources, a journalist’s job is to remain professional and sensitive to the situations they are covering.
But after a journalist migrates back to the newsroom and finishes the story about the toddler hit bya car, he or she will immediately swivel the chair around and say to the copydesk: “You guys wanna hear a good dead baby joke?” Or when an editor asks if the journalist got a photo of the baby, the journalist will reply with a smirk, “One after or before?”
Normally, journalists have a dry sense of humor. Grammatical puns and play on words are usually what make journalists snort diet coke out their nose.
When away from grieving parents, crying community members and sobbing spelling bee losers, journalists tell horribly inappropriate jokes about what just happened.
A crackhead who shoots up a Burger King, killing three? A natural lead for A1. It’s also great material for a “have it your way” joke. In the confines of a newsroom, journalists tell jokes that could make the dirtiest of comedians blush. Journalists can find the humor in almost any situation.
One might think journalists tell such jokes because they are callous and insensitive.
Journalists tell these jokes so they don’t take home with them the baggage of all the shocking events they see on a day-by-day basis. Journalists’ benefit package don’t include therapy or a counselor so journalists have the options of either telling crude dead baby jokes or drink more – and journalists don’t need another reason to drink more.
And while journalists who comes back from a homicide/suicide might be quick to share a joke with the newsroom, what they don’t share is how they sobbed their eyes out on the way home and called their parents just to tell them they love them.
Journalists like telling dead baby jokes and other tasteless and crude stories because it helps them cope with the horrible things they experience on the job. And it’s cheaper than therapy.
Welcome to the newsroom. We make fun of dead people. We’re not heartless, we’re journalists.
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Topics:
dead baby jokes list, dead baby jokes, crude baby jokes, jokes about journalism
True story about how bad jokes are a coping mechanism… Sometimes it’s the only way to keep that armor shield up from the Terrible things in this world.
Gotta laugh to keep from crying…
“Councilor” = fail.
Sick jokes and alcohol. If there’s a better ‘coping combo’, I’m yet to discover it.
The ending is true….we’ve all done it. It’s the only way to cope it seems. Though I’ve never told a dead baby joke. Only written their obituaries.
I remember still writing about the Space Shuttle Challenger when the Christa McAuliffe jokes started around the newsroom. It is sick, but it’s a way to cope – no doubt about it. Great post.
I hardly find humor in “dead baby jokes” and I doubt that the millions of parents who have lost their children would find it as rip-roaring hilarious as you did.