by Susan Snyder
The Philadelphia InquirerPublished: 1/24/2007
Excerpt:
The headline blared in the Daily Princetonian, Princeton University's student newspaper: a conservative political professor caught with a gay hooker.
That story and others in last Wednesday's issue certainly set the Ivy League campus abuzz, but not for the reason you might think.
The stories weren't true. The whole issue was a joke - an annual tradition at the paper.
But the well-known, tenured professor who was the subject of the story? He isn't laughing.
"I have the matter under review with a lawyer," professor Robert George said in a telephone interview this week. "I certainly do not want to do anything that harms Princeton University, which has been an extremely congenial home to me." ...
... Joke issues "often backfire," said
Bob Steele, senior ethics faculty at the nonprofit Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla. "While the intent may be to offer humor about serious issues, the quality of the humor often falls short and the other weaknesses of satire become apparent."
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