If you’re like me, you’ve run across this gag a number of times before, but it still brings a smile. This was sent to me today by a longtime colleague, who like me is probably nostalgic for the days when newspapers mattered in the ways implied by the joke.
This particular iteration no doubt comes out of Memphis judging by No. 12. The final line tends to vary. For instance, here’s one in which No. 12 reads, “None of these is read by the guy who is running the country into the ground.” I think I saw a version once in which the punchline was about The State, but I forget how it goes. Anyway, here’s this version:
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country, but don’t really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country, if they could find the time — and if they didn’t have to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country and don’t really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren’t sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped, minority, feminist, atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Memphis Commercial Appeal is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something to wrap it in.
Not a particularly imaginative version, since it was always taken as a truism, even a point of pride, by newspapermen and -women that yesterday’s news is used to wrap fish. Perhaps the author of this one didn’t know that.
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Very similar to the great show Yes Minister.
This is in the same vein as an online quiz in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution a few years ago asking, “Who was the greatest President?” One deep gray CSA loyalist said, “Jefferson Davis.” Another, not to be topped, riposted, “Abraham Lincoln was your President’s President.” Perhaps the AJC should be listed as the newspaper that would be the Wall Street Journal of the Confederacy, if the late unpleasantness had gone the other way.
Covers Dixie Like the Dew!