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Journal sick of jokes, obscure problems (5,4,3,6)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

paper over the cracks

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'obscure problems' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot tell whether it can be defined by this definition.

'journal sick of jokes' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'journal' could be 'paper' (I've seen this before) and 'paper' is present in the answer.
'of' could be 'o' and 'o' is located in the answer.
'jokes' could be 'cracks' and 'cracks' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?

(Another definition for paper over the cracks that I've seen is " make things look good".)

I've seen this clue in the Sydney Morning Herald.
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