Senior Investigative Correspondent & Director of Hard-Hitting Satire
There are legends. There are myths. And then there’s Banana Joe Flingston, who insists he’s both, and has the mug to prove it. Etched with the phrase “World’s Most Banned Journalist,” it doubles as his coffee cup and his weapon of choice during banana disputes.
You don’t assign Banana Joe a story. You drop a file marked “classified,” tape a banana to the cover, and leave it where he can find it. Within the hour, he’ll be gone. No explanation, no itinerary, just the faint smell of stale espresso and printer ink.
Banana Joe has been The Wink Report’s investigative cornerstone since the beginning, driven by a deeply rooted distrust of authority, snack machines, and anything with “official statement” in the subject line.
His reputation for chasing stories into dark alleys, restricted buildings, and abandoned boardrooms is matched only by his uncanny ability to get out again, usually with a scoop and a bruised ego.
As Senior Investigative Correspondent & Director of Hard-Hitting Satire, Joe leads our deepest dives into the absurd underbelly of modern society, where billionaire think tanks draft menu prices, government agencies deny obvious truths, and AI-generated press releases try to gaslight us into believing everything is “on track.” He brings receipts, recordings, and the kind of grainy surveillance photos that leave lawyers twitching.
He’s been banned from four airports, two state fairs, and at least one presidential library. His press badge has been confiscated more times than we can count, and yet it always reappears, worn, dented, but somehow laminated anew.
Joe’s methods are unconventional. His trench coat contains at least three hidden notebooks. He refuses to use digital recorders on “ethical grounds” and once claimed an interview with a rogue data scientist took place entirely through Morse code tapping on a radiator. Whether or not that’s true doesn’t matter. The article broke traffic records.
His sources range from janitors to disgruntled executives to a retired falconer who “sees patterns” in cloud formations. And somehow, Joe weaves their insights into exposes that expose just enough to rattle the comfortable, but never quite enough to earn him a proper defamation lawsuit. He considers that balance an art form.
No one knows where Joe lives, but it’s widely believed he operates out of a converted news van powered by instinct, black coffee, and cold suspicion. Ask him why he does this, and he’ll say the same thing every time: “Because someone has to.”
Then he’ll flick the banana peel into a bin and disappear into the shadows of the newsroom.