In all my years of writing articles whether it’s a news piece, an editorial or a feature, not once have I thought to bring humor to the forefront of my reporting or to make The Globe a publication rife with comedy.

Doing so would damage its reputation as a campus news leader and would run counter to what it means to run a student newspaper. Granted, some bits of information can be funny and a well-written scene lede in this newspaper can get a good giggle out of me.

But despite this and despite the comics on the fun page, I do not agree with the premise of satire in news, especially in an outlet that is not known for it or dabbles much in the realm of any comedy.

Let’s be clear, I’m not saying news satire can’t work; The Onion is arguably the master of it. They do what satire in news is supposed to – a fleeting critique on the awful things happening in our world at the moment.

But one student news organization, University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill’s Daily Tar Heel (DTH)  – whom I respect immensely – continued its yearly tradition of publishing satirical content online and in print on April Fool’s day, if one of its publication days falls close to the holiday. This year, it did.

And the articles that resulted were abysmal.

At best, what they decided to publish was simply not funny – one of the only exceptions was a recently fired basketball coach trying to find a summer internship on LinkedIn – and at worst, much of the articles were hateful and insensitive. Additionally, these articles were not properly marked as satire and were present on its front page as if the information was real.

The DTH’s editor-in-chief chalked it up to a production error and an ill-fated attempt at humor, but I find that hard to believe. The Globe’s articles typically go through around three to five editors before being put into the newspaper. Works in the DTH go through 35 editors at a minimum, judging by how many the paper has for each section. How this many people read these articles and didn’t see any potential issues seems almost impossible.

Now, I don’t mean to fight about something where the dust has ultimately settled and much of UNC Chapel Hill’s campus community might not care anymore. But it would feel irresponsible to not mention the scope of these articles, ranging from an article about DEI being brought back to the university only for white people, a “two stadium solution” – a play on the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine being compared to the decision to either tear down or renovate a basketball stadium and the replacement of alcohol compliance officers with ICE agents.

Satire in news does have historical merit and used to be something easily found in newspapers from the 19th and early 20th century. However, it’s important to note that this was also the time when yellow journalism, an early precursor to fake news and clickbait, was deemed acceptable by editors and publishers at the time.

And sometimes, tradition isn’t sacred.

Does this mean satire in news is something that should never happen ever again? Absolutely not; those who can do it well should continue to do so. In fact, UNC has its own satire news source – The Oh Well. It definitely has some low brow humor, but it doesn’t joke about tragedies or people being abducted by ICE unfairly.

And that’s the problem when newspapers, especially student newspapers, attempt to dabble in satire without the writing expertise to do it effectively. Good satire must carefully tread the line of irony, hypocrisy and humor while also sticking to some semblance of truth.

The problem only gets worse when allegations spread about a DTH editor appearing in a racist video during the same time as their April Fools’ issue was out and the editor-in-chief attempted to double down on the paper’s abhorrent content in private, telling their editors not to be goaded by anger, while begging for forgiveness and promising an internal investigation in public.

Alternate ways to express oneself in writing are welcomed and necessary. But to do so in such poor taste considering where we’re at as a country in what should be a leading example of student journalism is disappointing.

Whether The Globe decides to do anything resembling an April Fools issue or satirical content is not up to me once this semester is over. It used to for a while in a farce publication named “The Midnight Globe,” which was sometimes even more insensitive and hateful than this year’s DTH issue.

And without fail, The Globe had to apologize almost every week after the “satire” issue was published for objectionable content and slander, along with publishing an onslaught of valid angry letters to the editor. This is a tradition I hope never returns. Otherwise, The Globe will be receiving a letter from me.

Perhaps it’s time to let April Fools issues go the way of the Gutenberg press.