The Printer’s Devil

I’m a funny guy.

My sometimes-dry, sometimes-warped sense of humor has lit up the newsrooms where I’ve worked.

But not as a managing editor.

You’ll find out — as I did — humor is lot different coming out of your mouth as a reporter than out your mouth when you’re the boss.

As a boss, you’ll find that your humor isn’t taken as lightly as you might intend.

Sexual harassment? Workplace bullying? Discrimination?

Sort like trying to write comedy in the printed word; it’s tricky to pull off. Unless your staff really knows you or you have a deft hand at humor, save the standup routine for your spouse, your children or your dog.

And there’s another reason it’s sometimes better to be boring.

Your news room is a public place in a small town. There will always be other people floating around it.

Except for your well-reasoned editorials and columns, keep your witticisms about local personalities to yourself. As Lyndon Johnson once observed, “the only thing off the record is something that wasn’t said.”

In the news business, friends come and go but enemies accumulate and I see no reason to accelerate the process through unguarded comments.

One of the nasty incidents I remember occurred when an editor I knew made a flippant remark about a local politician who was finding success by being a holy roller in an early forerunner of the Christian Coalition.

The politician wasn’t around to hear it.

However, a woman in the circulation department was related to the brother of the holy roller’s wife and she didn’t waste any time in relaying the joke to the brother. In short order, the joke got back to the politician, already the target of several (well-deserved) editorials, came sailing into the office with both broadsides double-shotted. (As an aside, the guy found political success, got a cushy job in the state capital, grew a beard, found a tootsie and dumped his wife.)

Editor, don’t be afraid to be yourself. But editor, edit yourself.