Columnists Drone On 2014 Sitting Duck Winner

One form of drone, a 2014 Sitting Duck of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Drones — no, not the ones in Congress but the unmanned ones that fly around — have won this year’s Sitting Duck Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.

The award is given each year to a person or subject that represents easy pickings for columnists on slow news days. The selection was made at the NSNC’s annual conference this weekend in Washington.

“Drones were in the news almost every day for the last year,” said NSNC President Eric Heyl, “from the military payload carrier to the kind Amazon wants to employ to dump the used books we order on our doorstep. And thank goodness they were. Without them columnists all over the country might have wound up writing again about their damned dogs.”

A male honeybee buzzing The Washington Post was quoted as having overheard new owner Jeff Bezos say the newspaper will expand drone use to home delivery of the print edition. Bezos late last year announced his beta company, Amazon.com, will offer shipment of its products by drones.

“The Post is skipping the failed paywall model for the payload to remonetize journalism,” Bezos wrote in a pixilated memo to staff. Paper carriers will be offered alternate employment in the newsroom.

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NSNC’s Sitting Duck Award is bestowed on the year’s most ridiculed newsmaker. The title originates from how these figures are easy targets — sitting ducks — during the most perilous of times a columnist can face: the slow news day.

The award may be given to a person, issue or thing, chosen at the annual conference. The winning “drones” was nominated by humor blogger Judy Epstein of New York. A committee, as usual, fleshed out her suggestion into this news release.