Hey Journalists, puns are old news!

So, stumbled across this article today: "Non-contact hockey: It's a hit"
Ha! A pun. Get it? Because ... no contact, a hit ... hitting is contact.
Why do they even bother anymore? Puns are fine. Especially those of the subtle variety, for example where there are three people in a group...
Person A: Something clever adding to the conversation
Person A B & C: Laughter
Person C: "And ha, no pun intended!"
Persons A and B: More laughter Upon realization of second meaning in what was originally said. Ideally, Person A laughs more here as he/she stated the original entity in full innocence.

But to always use repetitive dim witted puns as titles to B league news stories is uninspired, at best. My least favorite is the obvious front page of the sports section headline "Titans use their heads to win LNC title" and the picture is, of course, a member of the Titans hitting some object with their head, or better, getting hit in the head by some object. Don't get me wrong, the joke is hilarious; to four year olds. However most of them don't periodically browse the papers scanning for clever word play in the headlines.
But I am not one to just criticize, so I did a bit of research and found out that, obviously, a title is supposed to immediately grab the attention of those who are scanning through, and incite them to read more. Notice the no quotation marks there? Yeah, it's not verbatim, deal with it.
Let's first look at the larger stories. To immediately grab the attention of the casual reader, what if we just put the title in a different font size, put some bold, and have it be the first thing in an article. Surely then we wouldn't need a pun. Oh, yeah they already do that. It's not usually hard to urge the readers to continue the article once they parse over the title "TERRORISTS TERRORISTS TERRORISTS: IN YOUR BACK YARD, PLAYING WITH YOUR DOG" or "OIL SPILL MOCKING YOUR MOTHER, TO HIT SHORE WITHING WEEK" .
That's expected; that's what news papers are for, for news.
Big stories need no pun
That, not necessary.

It's in the smaller cases, the technical term is "Filler" I believe, that problems come up.

The cats in the tree and the "Rural Residents Bear unwanted wildlife", "Construction workers raise their glasses to new skyscraper". For some odd reason, no one wants to read these columns. So can we assume that the Pun incites the reader into believing that the author is humorous and that the rest of the article is a barrel of laughs? I mean it's not like saying exactly what the story is about will get anyone to read it. But if humor is all that is needed, why not put straight up jokes. Or side splitting riddles even.
Example, for a story about a local cat show, Headline: "WHY WAS THE SQUIRREL SWIMMING ON HIS BACK?". Then have two paragraphs of text, and subtly put "To keep his nuts dry" somewhere in the middle of the article.
This can work even better if the reader misses it the first time, he/she can read over it again and try to find it. Now you have readers spending even more time in your paper. It's perfect, no?
Wait, heres an alternative, take all the useless crap out of my news papers. Rid me of the puns and the stories about "Restaurant delivers baked goods to ex marijuana addicts", then you might get me reading the paper again.
Signing off,
R.
A bitter blogger who gets it write.

Credit given where credit's due. Photos found here and on the Internet.