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There are plenty of reasons that the press needs, if not a good hate-on, at least a swat. The St. Paul Pioneer Press demonstrates one reason — the press is easily amused — by calling ex-Sun CEO Scott McNealy (pictured here finding jokes on chests) "funny", "brash", and "outspoken" in the lede to a recap of his tepid talk at the U of Saint Thomas.

"Now Microsoft, it likes to say it shares, but if they said that here today to you, you'd be throwing things down at them," he said, glancing up at the people in the balcony of the college's new Schulze Hall in Minneapolis. "And IBM, what has it shared? Invoices?"

Cue the rimshot.

That rimshot line could be wry bored commentary if it weren't for the cheesy lede. As could the following:

"Give all 6 billion people a Dell computer — think of the global warming!" he said. "Minnesota would be three feet deep in water — it would be the land of one lake."

Rimshot.

If you have to simulate musical joke alerts in a news piece, just don't print the gags at all.

Potshots, rimshots at McNealy talk [Pioneer Press]