Has News Crap Australia unwittingly confirmed the fact that ex-PM Tony Abbott is not the suppository of all wisdom – something we all actually knew well before 2013 when as Opposition Leader he said: “No one, however smart, however well educated, however experienced, is the suppository of all wisdom.”
The publication by separate News Crap Australia outlets of Abbott’s eulogy to George Pell at the late cardinal’s funeral may have put it beyond doubt.
In his tribute Abbott cited Pell’s work to establish Catholic educational institutions including Campion College in Sydney, named after a 16th English scholar and martyr Saint Edmund Campion.
The relevant line of his eulogy run in the Sydney turdbloid The Daily Telegraph (at left below) reads: “… and Campion College… named for the Jesuit Mater…”
In the national broadshit The Catholic Daily…. ooops, The Australian (at right below) the line appears: “… and Campion College… named for the Jesuit martyr…”
We reckon Abbott supplied both outlets with his written text, so our bet is that it contained the word “Mater” – itself 16th century Latin for “mother”.
Our theory is that the many monks at The Oz who pored over every single one of Abbott’s words – in between attending confession, saying the rosary, and prostrating themselves on the newsroom floor in front of a large colour portrait of Pell – picked up and corrected the mistake while their colleagues at the Tele let it slide.
If that’s not what happened then may we burn in hell. If it does come to that, then at least we can have a bit of a theological joke about it with George.
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No biggie, for sure, but why did ABC radio on Thursday refer to a stabbing in The Grange in Brisbane’s inner-north-side.
The suburb is Grange. It’s named after The Grange, the first farmmhouse in the area, on the corner of Crowther and Fuller streets.
Reporting on a stabbing in The Grange is akin to reporting on a car accident in The Chermside or a ramraid on a liquor outlet in The Coorparoo.
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A little bit more serious is ABC TV reporter Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop’s report earlier in the week on an Israeli military raid that killed nine Palestinians in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Rubinsztein-Dunlop reported as a clear matter of fact with no qualification whatsoever that the dead had been “mainly gunmen”.
A day later, he reported that the dead had included a woman and one gunman.
Mediocre Bytes of course has no bloody idea who exactly was killed in the raid but we would strongly advise Rubinsztein-Dunlop to always throw a “Israel claimed” into such reports. Ditto for the other side too. When it comes to the Middle East, qualify, qualify, qualify.
Rubinsztein-Dunlop is a damn fine journalist and we didn’t see the need to upgrade his little mistake to a full-blown Media Glass House item. But we’ll keep an eye in him from now on.
The Bug Online 