Under the government's proposals, the parliament spending watchdog may no longer have to get the go-ahead from the BBC governing body to launch investigations, and some fear it could extend to asking editorial questions, such as whether the BBC gets value for money on its Saturday night entertainment.
"Monk or Chinese Plant?" asked an editorial in The Tribune, a national English-language newspaper.
We asked Guardian editorial community manager Marc Burrows – who has been known to moonlight on the standup circuit – to assess the quality of the prime minister's one-liners.
"What makes the English muffin unique?" I asked Karen Hochman, editorial director of Thenibble.com, an online magazine that reviews specialty foods.
"Where are people going to go to find competitive rates?" asked Linda Sherry, editorial director of Consumer Action, an advocacy group in San Francisco.
I asked the editorial board member, Teresa Tritch, who covers the economy, taxes and other complicated things that make me nervous to analyze on my own, to take a look at the return.
He had read about Norman Cousins, an American journalist who claimed to have laughed his way out of a fatal illness, and he asked his editorial staff to research the topic.
"Who will dictate the curatorial policy of the museum here in Brazil, the main office or the local branch?" asked one editorial after the Guggenheim team returned to New York.
The trust has asked its editorial standards committee to "review these issues" at its meeting next week and requested a "final, written report from the director general at its next meeting on November 20 on all relevant issues".
"Have we regressed in France to such a perverse court practice that nobody dares tell the monarch that he is wrong?" asked an editorial in Le Monde, a left-leaning newspaper.Even those supporters ready to give Mr Sarkozy the benefit of the doubt on the scandals themselves worry about the damage they will do to his ability to make some of the hard choices that lie ahead.
