TV reporters rely on a lot of cliché metaphors in their job — e.g., “seeds of doubt,” “flurry of activity” — but when you’re reporting on a particularly grisly story, you may want to think twice about which ones you employ.

For this particular example of Cliches Not to Use When Reporting™, we turn to CNN’s Chris Cuomo, who appeared Monday live from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the passenger flight that reportedly fell victim to a surface-to-air missile of undetermined origin, killing all 298 aboard:

In case you’re too lazy to un-mute the above Vine, Cuomo asked Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) to “shoot down” a theory about the missiles having potentially been used by the Ukrainian forces to take down MH17.

To his credit, Cuomo quickly noticed his own poor phrasing and said “Excuse the pun.”

Watch the clip below, via CNN:

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