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Joe Biden just handed the media an easy comic relief story (and a gaffe), but with the great power to entertain also comes the great responsibility not to offend. So how did the mainstream media chose to report the story without using Biden’s off-color adjective for the health care bill law? We went with the euphemistic “f-bomb;” for all you psycho- linguistics majors out there, here’s what the rest of the media did:

Who knew that corrections pages could be so exciting? Backing off baseless allegations that gypsies sabotaged police helicopters and incorrect accusations that Teri Hatcher hosted “sex romps” in a VW camper is all in a year’s work for charmingly libelous British tabloid The Sun. And they’re more accurate than many British papers, somehow!

At the end of last week, Washington Post reporter Ian Shapira wrote a profile of a niche consultant — a “generational guru” — who teaches clients to communicate with members of different generations. Later that day, Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan picked up the story, snarked it down, added a few links — one at the top, one at the bottom — and posted it. Business as usual, right? Wrong.

Today is the launch of Gossip Cop. The premise is simple: investigate the accuracy of the daily anecdotes, the rampant rumors, and the cubicle grist known as celebrity gossip. Think of it as TMZ meets Smoking Gun. Or maybe Perez Hilton meets Columbia Journalism Review.