New Republic, give up your asinine puns!

The BBQ Pit
1

What is with The New Republic and cheesy, pun-based headlines. It isn’t as though it just happens now and then; it seems to be editorial policy to make a pun headline whenever possible.

FYI, NPR: It’s fucking retarded.

I’ve thought of pitting this shit in the past, but finally NPR has produced one that is truly, disgustingly Pitable. For a review of a book on St. Augustine, NPR gives us:

“Textual Healing”

Holy fuckin’ Christ, is that awful.

Such puns are the lowest type of humor. OK, so we’ve heard of the song “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye. Now we read this title. We see there is a connection via pun, but only via pun. It’s not funny. It’s ad hoc. Why does your highbrow mag go for such lowbrow humor? (I have nothing against low, vulgar humor. But, like anything else it’s got to be funny. And it ought to match the publication, too.)

Other puns on the home page right now are:

“Hollow Point”
“Widely Red” (Haw haw–funny! And fucking stale, you stupid mutherfuckers!)

Many of the other titles go in for some other types of quirkiness:

“Chaos Theory”
“Response Time”
“Twice Removed” (Reaching but failing to grasp… anything!)
“Wrong Dose”

Other mags do this, to be sure, but TNR really ought to be above it. For the most part, it’s intelligently written. Oh, and my e-subscription ran out a long time ago, but for some reason I’m still golden there. Stupid fuckerz!

2

Still a great mag, though, all in all…

3

Hmmmm… High Prays indeed.

4

NPR? Whuzzat? Did you instead mean to type “TNR?”

5

What, “Tits-‘n’-Rear?” It just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

6

It is editorial policy to put bad puns in headlines. My brother’s a veteran copy editor (who currently works for the Orange County Register) and he’s won several headline-writing contests. One time about fifteen years ago he won $1500 for headline writing from whatever big newspaper chain he was working for (Cox, I think).

According to him, newspaper editors love corny jokes in headlines. One time he was headlining a story about how some bad seventies classic rock bands, including Kansas, were touring together. The headline he wrote was “Carrion, My Wayward Son.” His bosses entered that in a contest and he won a prize for it.

Please note that I am not defending this silliness. I am merely repeating what my brother has told me.