Even the hardened, cynical, old coots who compile The Bug‘s Media Glass House shed a quickly disguised tear last night when they watched Channel 9’s 6pm news out of Brisbane and saw and heard about the stabbing death of a Gold Coast man on Christmas Day.

How many of you Buggers out there reacted the same when newsreader Melissa Downes introduced a segment on youth crime involving knives with this opening gambit: “A father brutally stabbed by a teenager on his driveway on Christmas Day, left to bleed out in front of his wife and children”.

Is there anything much sadder than that! And on Christmas Day too. Happy Xmas Days to them for many, many years to come.

“Tonight,” Melissa continued, “they break their silence” on the terrible events of that night.

Still, it’s probably for the best that the man’s widow and his grieving children talk about it. We don’t expect closure for them for a long time but talking it through can’t do any harm, surely?

Nine’s reporter Cam Inglis then took up the tragic story to accompany the footage of the stabbing: “Scenes like these tearing Queensland families apart as an enraged teenager charges towards his son, Ben Clarke’s protective instincts kick in”.

A bit later…. “The 46-year-old father instantly crumpling to the ground, bleeding out in his own driveway…”

So, that’s where Melissa got her intro from!

Viewers were then shown Ben’s widow talking to camera about that dreadful night before Ben himself spoke emotionally about the stabbing, the looks in his family’s faces as they saw what had happened and how his son who came to his aid had blood all down his forearm.

What? Ben’s alive after all! He has somehow recovered after bleeding out!

Hallelujah! It’s a miracle!

Okay, enough! We’ve had some fun with this but maybe the Channel 9 Brisbane newsroom’s cadet counsellor (insert prolonged and loud canned laughter here!) can provide Cam Inglis with some much-needed guidance as his reporting career unfolds.

Oh, and they might also urge him to watch footage closely before framing his reports. Mr Clarke does NOT instantly crumple to the ground. Picky, picky, we know but it’s true.

Describing what you see accurately is just as important as knowing the meaning of words and phrases.

FOOTNOTE: The Media Glass House acknowledges that English is and always has been an evolving language. Cam Inglis might be just one of countless modern reporters reshaping the definition of “bleeding out” so that it’s not always fateful. We say this because those hardened, cynical, old coots who compile The Bug‘s Media Glass House remember a time when someone who was electrocuted had no further contribution to make as a human being on this planet. Apart from compost, of course.

People nowadays can be electrocuted by touching live wires while cleaning out gutters and be back on the ladder, bucket in hand, after a cuppa and a bit of a lie-down.