It is also beloved of the media as a whole - tell people something you know will upset them but they wouldn't have heard about then report how upset they are and what an outrage it is. Instant news story if you've got nothing else to report.
The tabliods over here love doing it with comedians doing shows - none of the audience are offended but then a newspaper will repeat the "offensive" joke they told so everyone who reads it will hear the joke, then they have a story about how 100s of their readers have complained about the comedian telling the joke, even though none of them were in the audience.