Writing humor in a time of anger and angst

Award-winning columnist says strife can spur best work

Humor columnist Mark Harmon says the satirist Art Buchwald loved the Watergate scandal, because there was so much bizarre material that he could get his column done in an hour and be on the tennis courts by mid-morning.

“I think a lot of humor comes from being aghast at something,” says Harmon, who earlier this week won this year's National Press Club humor-writing award for his work with the Knoxville News Sentinel. 

Harmon says he's been pretty much non-stop aghast for the past year and a half. That's helped him imagine a column cited by award judges about Mitch McConnell in hell. (“You have a lot of admirers here,” Lucifer tells McConnell in the column.)

A similar inspiration prompted another column set in a psychiatrist's office. Sergey Kislyak, Russia's former ambassador to the United States, was complaining that no one, like Michael Flynn or Jeff Sessions, can seem to remember meeting him. Here's one exchange:

"Oh I didn't see you come in," said the receptionist.

"That happens a lot," replied Kislyak.

Press Club judges said Harmon has "a knack for taking a simple idea or detail … and spinning it into a highly creative scenario.” Harmon, a journalism professor at the University of Tennessee, has been spinning those scenarios since he was a columnist for Penn State's Daily Collegian four decades ago. Harmon says he finds his search for other, often absurd ways to tell a story to be satisfying, if not therapeutic. 

Harmon's two-fold goal: Make people laugh. And help people consider another perspective.

A liberal who has spent his adult life in conservative northwestern Texas and eastern Tennessee, Harmon says he uses humor to bring people together.

“There’s no margin in treating political opponents as enemies,” he says. That doesn't mean, however, that he won't use a hammer — in the style of one of his idols, the departed Molly Ivins — to show hypocrisy or a lack of courage by local politicians on issues such as climate change. 

The Press Club award comes at a bittersweet time for Harmon. The Knoxville paper, like many nationwide, has had cutbacks, and in late June, he was among four contributing columnists to get the ax. 

On Wednesday, however, he got a new venue for his column — the weekly Farragut Press, in western Knox County. The gig came just in time, Harmon says.

"Have you seen all these stories about Bigfoot Porn?" he asks. "What a time not to be writing a column. It's just sitting there."

Here is the full list of winners.

Quick hits

ANOTHER CONTROVERSIAL HIRE: The New York Times is defending a just-hired technology writer  after criticism of some of her early tweets. In a statement, The Times said it had checked Sarah Jeong’s social media accounts before her hiring to the editorial board. The Times said Jeong, from The Verge, had in the past dealt with frequent online harassment by “imitating the rhetoric of her harassers. … She regrets it, and The Times does not condone it. … She understands that this type of rhetoric is not acceptable at The Times.” 

JEONG'S RESPONSE: The reporter, in a statement, characterized her unearthed tweets as satire, adding, "I deeply regret that I mimicked the language of my harassers." In one tweet, she said "it must be so boring to be white." In another, she wrote: “White people have stopped breeding. You’ll all go extinct soon. This was my plan all along.” A third read: "Oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.” Meanwhile, her coworkers on The Verge's editorial board strongly condemned online harassment of journalists and applauded the Times for standing by Jeong.

ONCE BEFORE: In February, The Times had announced the hire of Wired's Quinn Norton for the job, but within hours, she had departed after previous social media postings of hers emerged. In those posts, she used offensive language and admitted she was friends with neo-Nazis,

DEAD MEN WALKING: That story on John Kelly? Done. Dan Coats? In process. How one newsroom is getting a jump on White House exits in the high-turnover Trump administration — by writing the story early. “It’s sort of like the old long-standing practice of having prewritten obits,” Los Angeles Times Washington bureau chief David Lauter tells The New Yorker’s Charles Bethea.  

MORE LAUTER: The L.A. Times bureau chief has announced the hiring of Politico’s Jennifer Haberkorn and the WSJ’s Del Quentin Wilber. “Great to be hiring again,” Lauter tweeted, after the LAT spent months in limbo before billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong finally wrested the the paper from Tronc in June.

HELPING LOCAL NEWS: Facebook announced a $4.5 million investment to help local newsrooms retain subscribers, build membership programs and match donations. That includes a $1 million gift to News Match program for nonprofit newsrooms.

THE STORY SO FAR: Here’s a summary of a few subscription techniques via Facebook that publishers have adopted, including a successful, opportunistic sign-up program by the San Francisco Chronicle during the California primaries and NBA finals.

GRAIN OF SALT: Jemele Hill, the National Association of Black Journalists’  journalist of the year, has this advice for young sportswriters: Don’t take social media too seriously — particularly the criticism. “It’s not life or death.” said Hill, a senior correspondent and columnist for ESPN and The Undefeated, at this year's NABJ convention in Detroit. (h/t Kevin Merida)

IN ANOTHER MOVE: Sherry Skalko, director of the Amplify project at the Investigative News Network, is moving to become executive director of Injustice Watch.

What we’re reading

‘I LOVE YOUR DOG’: What happens when a reader becomes a stalker, tracking your dog walks, noticing your Christmas decorations, coming to your door? “If anyone were to shoot and kill you,” he said, “it would not be a loss at all!” Chilling story by Stephen Petrow for CJR. (h/t Matt DeRienzo)

STUDENTS THREATENED: A shadowy online group is targeting American Jewish college students who support Palestinian rights, and in one case, two unknown people in costumes tried to intimidate students on a Washington campus. Here's the first part of a series by The Forward.  

JUST THE LATEST WRINKLE: Why the panic over blueprints to build plastic guns on 3D printers? Well, they could evade metal detectors. However, since the 1980s, “anyone can purchase the most lethal of firearms free from all legal regulations,” writes Timothy Lytton for The Conversation.

Cartoonist Rob Rogers has a similar take.

Guns, Guns, Guns! cartoon: https://t.co/ssRMLwQ7Q0 #3Dprinter #3DGuns #guns #NRA #guncontrol pic.twitter.com/dMYTt2LT5F

— Rob Rogers (@Rob_Rogers) August 2, 2018

On Poynter.org

• How the UK plans to combat “fake news.” By Daniel Funke and Alexios Mantzarlis.

• In Memphis, a well-funded nonprofit news site will launch with a staff of 25. By Rick Edmonds.

• Back for a second year, help for college journalists. From the Poynter staff.

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