I have some very sad news to report. Often when I say I have sad news to report I mean it in jest, where the line "I have some very sad news to report" is followed either by an ironic, sarcastic, blatantly obvious, or patently false statement. Take, for example, the following – I have some very sad news to report: Stephen Drew is a bad baseball player. Though this news may be frustrating, it is almost certainly not sad; nobody weeps over Stephen Drew’s impotence as a baseball player, and we would all like him to be replaced by somebody more competent.