The editor of the Sunday Age has been summarily sacked overnight, marched from the paper’s Melbourne newsroom by security guards around 9.30pm for “displaying an egregious lack of news sense.”

The Bug has heard from several senior editorial staffers who were close enough to the editor’s office around 9.17pm to overhear Nine Entertatinment Co. chairman Peter Costello’s phone call from Sydney.

“Apparently Costello had just been shown the splash for today’s edition and he was beyond ropeable,” a deputy editor told us this morning on the condition of anonymity. “You could tell Costello was so angry he could hardly spit out the words he wanted to use.”

“Costello called the editor a ‘fucking imbecile’ and I heard him shout: ‘Who the fuck cares if people with COVID might have trouble voting on election day! This was our second last chance as a Sunday paper to sink the fucking boot into Andrews and his dreadful socialist government and its woke supporters and you go all gooey on me.

“Costello then added: “You have displayed an egregious lack of news sense and I want you to fucking well pack up your things and get the fuck out of my newspaper.”

The Bug understands journalists in the Sunday Age newsroom reacted appropriately as the editor was frogmarched from the building.

“Serves yourself right, you stupid prick,” one senior politics reporter shouted.

“Go fuck off and work for the Labor Party or the Victorian Trades Hall,” shouted another, his words barely audible over the chorus of jeers and catcalls.

The MGH understands deputy editor Stephen Brook will fill the editor’s chair until a replacement can be found who better understands the paper’s role in shaping public opinion for the common good.

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Our MGH research teams have previously remarked on how often a “news” story appears in News Crap Australia outlets based on products sold by major advertisers, especially the very common references to items lining the shelves of heavy advertising buyers like Coles and Woolworths supermarkets.

The recent “news” story above is a prime example. It gives a big plus to a Vegemite flavoured roast chicken being offered in some Coles supermarkets and helpfully contains its price and the date from which it will be available.

Our MGH teams suggest a new term should be invented for this practice.

“Quid pro quo” doesn’t seem adequate to them and they are putting forward “lots of quids pro quo” as a fitting alternative.