It’s no surprise to anyone who has worked in Journalism (or had loved ones who have) that people working in the Media either develop a dark sense of humor over time or have one to begin with. Gallows humor isn’t uncommon in people who experience physically or psychologically stressful and challenging situations in their line of work. It’s something that research has consistently shown to be true for Medical Professionals, First Responders, Veterans, Journalists, and others who regularly encounter difficult and unpleasant things in their line of work.

This makes perfect sense, considering the well-established connection between humor and stress reduction, as well as the impact it has on depression and irritation. Dark Humor is, for many people, a Coping Mechanism that helps to stave off depression and distress in response to traumatic experiences, and not exclusively those associated with one’s occupation. It’s been compared to “whistling past the graveyard” by some.

Several studies have been conducted on the correlation between Dark Humor and Trauma, available from organizations such as the National Institutes of Health and the American Medical Association. The overall effectiveness of this kind of outlook (as far as catharsis is concerned) is debatable, but the prevalence is undeniable.

That being said, my tendency toward Gallows Humor can run a bit darker and deeper than most. Some of that could be related to my secondary career as a horror author and a certain desensitization that goes with intentionally exploring some truly taboo and horrific topics, as well as the worst aspects of my own human nature. It could be a result of Childhood Trauma combined with my career choices. It could be something in the way I’m hardwired. I do know that my greatest enjoyment concerning jokes and comedy has always leaned in that direction, at least as far back as I can recall. My suspicion is that (at least in my case) it’s a combination of all of the above that influences my brand of humor as it stands today.

One of the ways my humor manifests in my career as a Journalist is in a fascination with both alliteration and rhyme, especially in places where it’s thoroughly inappropriate. Some of my colleagues can appreciate my perspective, and even the inherent humor behind my statements and suggestions, while others find it perplexing and in poor taste. I suspect some of the latter individuals would find themselves less shocked by my occasional outbursts and the like if they’d been working in the industry longer than they have.

When I was still working in Western South Dakota, during the late summer of 2022, there was a murder that took place at a mobile home in Box Elder, the town that is butted up against Ellsworth Air Force Base. I typed up a quick Limerick and sent it via text to my News Director so that it would be the first thing she’d see when she woke up for work that morning. I received a one-word response a short while later, “No!”

Naturally, I wasn’t sincerely going to incorporate anything like the following rhyme into my scripts for the Newscast, but that didn’t change how amusing I thought it was to imagine doing so.

There was a middle-aged man in Box Elder.
He hated a woman and felled her.
He’s under arrest.
Despite his protests.
He was caught trying to run from the trailer.

In May of this year, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek declared the month to be Wildfire Awareness Month. When we were covering the story, I suggested a poem for the reporter we were assigning to it. I don’t consider the following poem to be particularly dark, but I understand how and why it was nevertheless unacceptable in practical terms.

Top fire officials share an outlook that’s quite concerning…
Offering tips to keep Oregon’s forests from burning.
Governor Kotek signs a new declaration.
Wildfire Awareness Month is her creation.
The fire cache is stocked up with much-needed supplies.
What you can do to avoid a scorching surprise.

There are several more incidents of me attempting to insert levity where most people would insist it does not belong, and I suppose I should share a few more examples. Some of these may be a bit grim, while others (I insist) are simply funny.

It was May of 2024 when Washington’s former Attorney General, Bob Ferguson, was campaigning for Governor. A Republican activist recruited two men, also named Bob Ferguson, to campaign as Democrats as well, going so far as to pay their filing fees and handle the registration of their campaigns. Those two fraudulent campaigns were ultimately withdrawn from the race because it’s a Class B Felony to intentionally mislead or confuse the election as they were. I put the story together for my Newscast and suggested that I should use a graphic saying, “Two Bobs, One Gov.” The way I looked at it, anyone who picked up on the reference to “Two Girls, One Cup” wasn’t likely to complain about it.

In October of 2024, one of our reporters provided a multi-part explainer on how the new Ranked-Choice voting process works because Portland had implemented Ranked-Choice for the Mayoral Race. When he was delving into how tabulation of the results would be performed, I opted to tease the story with, “What to expect when you’re electing.”

That same month, there was an Officer-Involved Shooting in a Taco Bell drive-thru, and I suggested we should lighten the tone by saying the individual who was shot had been trying to make a run for the border. I wasn’t alone in making bad jokes associated with that particular incident. Things like Glock-o Bell may have been tossed around for our amusement.

In November of last year, I found a story from Alaska about a beached fin whale near Anchorage. Part of the story focused on a mother who homeschools her children, and how she used the carcass as supplemental material for biology lessons. While putting the story together for my Newscast, I added a graphic that said, “A Whale Of a Lesson,” and I’m still pretty proud of that.

In April of this year, we were discussing updates to the police investigation of a mother and her children who were found hanging in their home a couple of weeks earlier. It wasn’t a quiet environment when I muttered (thinking it was only to myself), “I’m just hanging with my family this weekend.” It was, however, quiet enough that one person did hear what I said, and their response seemed to display both appreciation and shock at what I’d just said.

There is a walking trail near where I live in Vancouver, featuring various gnome figures and fairy gardens, because several children use that path to get to school. It provided a little bit of magic as kids made their way to and from school, and the nearby community put a fair amount of time and effort into contributing to those additions to the trail. People being who they are, it’s no surprise that someone came along and started destroying the gnomes, and I proudly wrote a script that said the community intended to fight back against the “gnome wrecker.”

It wasn’t long ago that we learned of a sperm race taking place at the Hollywood Palladium in LA, complete with a tiny racetrack and high-resolution cameras monitoring the speed and motility of the sperm cells facing off head-to-head. We chattered about that on and off for a couple of hours, leading to a deeply unserious environment. One of our photographers said he could fly down to LA to shoot the event, and I asked if we could refer to that as a new form of “skeet shooting.”

From what we were seeing, the main event appeared to be a contest between sperm from a white man and a black man. I asked how long it would take for the racists to start in with accusations of “fast-twitch flagella.”

Some of these are dark, and some are inappropriate, but they’re also emblematic of what it can be like to work in the field that I do. This may go some way toward explaining my attitude at times when I’m discussing politics and other topics as well. Combined with my deeply-rooted cynicism, my tendency to find humor in things that might not be inherently humorous occasionally causes issues for me in my personal life, more often than my professional one. There’s a degree of amusement to be found in my professional environment being where some of my least professional comments are the most acceptable. But, the reality is that we understand one another there, and we understand how some of the things we expose ourselves to would wear us down far more quickly if we didn’t find a way to laugh through the pain and whistle past the graveyard.