“Puddle of Mudd’s lead singer, Wesley Scantlin, has found himself in a puddle of trouble. He was taken into custody after Torrance Police responded to a home in the area. On Tuesday, March 11, officers were called to a home in Torrance. A short time later, Scantlin was arrested by Torrance PD officers following an incident involving allegations of domestic violence and drug possession,” says the lede to a Monday Fox 11 Los Angeles article, filed under the “entertainment” section.

Now to be fair, prior to the lede, the article does say “Are you or someone you know a recent survivor of domestic violence? Help is available. Los Angeles County has a hotline, which can be reached at 1-800-978-3600. A national hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-7233,” so the writer, credited only as “FOX 11 Digital Team,” does at least notionally treat the subject of domestic abuse seriously – for about as long as it takes the reader to scroll down to see the “puddle of trouble” part.

Easy to imagine they were just dying to use that little quip but experienced a few moments of angst over trivializing what’s very likely to be a tragic situation for Scantlin’s partner and/or children, wishing it was solely the drug possession thing he’d been arrested over, but then said “eh, fuck it” and hit “publish” with that line in there anyway. Or maybe there was no such crisis of conscience.

Maybe there was even less guilt on the part of that writer than this one after a circa 2002 faux pas concerning Scantlin’s band. This reporter, 18 at the time, asked out loud “Why is ‘Puddle of Mudd’ abbreviated as ‘POD’? Shouldn’t it be ‘POM’?” to which a peer sporting blonde-frosted spiked hair tips, a chain wallet, and possibly a black “KORN” t-shirt exclaimed “THEY’RE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BANDS, YOU IDIOT!” This reporter then simply laughed in the face of the offended party.