"The manager of the Minneapolis Moonrakers resigned last week and Ann Landers made a joke about it in her column" -- it?

From Grice, PPQ, vol. 67, p. 9.

"[T]he manager's resignation COULD, certainly,
be the object of 'it'."

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"But this, IF, and only if,
the reference of 'it' be

DEMONSTRATIVE,

rather than anaphoric."

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Cfr.:

"That, at last, is what the directors have been hoping for".

"Now, at last, the directors got it."

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The sentence in the header, however, "The mananger of the Minneapolis Moonrakers resigned last week and Ann Landers made a joke about it in her column" is other.

"The sentence makes an ANAPHORIC reference."

Not a demonstrative one.

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If so, there is NO reference which is being picked up."

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So, Davidson's way of bringing in surface structure from the depths is NOT justified.