Beware that a ban doesn't spawn snake rules

I don't know if you've followed the commentary about Bob Rivard's temporary ban on puns in headlines at the San Antonio Express-News (links below). Enough has been written about puns. I'm not going to join that fray, but I will write about bans. Leaders should be careful about blanket thou-shalt-not statements. If Rivard had complained previously to the copy desk about puns and his complaints were ignored, this certainly got their attention and sometimes a leader needs to take strong action to get attention and change the way a newsroom operates. If Rivard's goal is a newspaper where puns are used only when they meet high standards and fit the story, maybe the way to get there if his copy desk was using them indiscriminately, is to ban them and then let up slowly. However, leaders need to be careful in saying what they want and don't want in the paper. Newsrooms have too many "snake rules," so named because some publisher's wife somewhere said she thought a photo of a snake in the paper was disgusting and the newsroom supposedly had a ban on snakes in the paper that lasted for years. Rivard's ban was explicit and temporary and most snake rules come when the boss doesn't mean to ban something and staff members (and often middle managers) overreact by presuming a ban from offhand remark. One bit of advice if you have issued or are considering any sort of ban: Check in after a while to see how it is being interpreted. You don't want a ban on bad puns to turn into a ban on humor. The Readership Institute has found that readers enjoy surprise and humor. And they find too little of it in newspapers. If you're interested in reading more about the ban, check out this initial column and this follow-up by the Express-News ombudsman. The Capital Idea blog by Nicole Stockdale and the Words at Work blog (apparently by Pam Robinson) debate the ban and link to other blogs that continue the debate (search for "pun" if it's not the top entry).
Don Podesta of the Washington Post discusses it in this online chat (again, search for pun unless you want to read the whole chat).