The column that has fun with the smaller mistakes and missteps of Australia’s mainstream mediocre; that pays homage to those sweet little fishes that individually don’t amount to a full meal but collectively can cause a tummy upset over the overall state of the once great and noble craft of journalism in this country.
This column quite some time ago stopped trying to get young tyro reporters to stop dangling participles. Almost to a young man and woman they seemed duty bound – especially if they worked in electronic mediocre newsrooms – to dangle a participle at least once a story.
But heck, just for old time’s sake and with the faint hope that a once basic principle of English writing might one day make a comeback, let’s say hello to Kate Lambe (at top) from Channel 9 Brisbane who reported last weekend on the tragic fatal bashing of that old man up at Noosa.
Take it away, Kate. “Suffering severe head injuries, bystanders tried to revive him…”
Oh, Kate! With just a little effort and the gentlest of tweaks, that could easily have been avoided.
***
The sad news overnight from the wreck of the Titanic won’t stop us using this little piece we picked up on the ABC online.
Mediocre Bytes thinks developing hypothermia would have been the lesser of their worries under those circumstances.
As it turns out, a massive implosion looks likely to have taken out those five sad souls very quickly which turns out to be very much a blessing in disguise.
***
Finally, it’s not rocket surgery when it comes to using “summoned” and “summonsed”, okay?
Young journos should be summoned regularly to read The Bug‘s two media based columns: this one and the Media Glass House. We rather modestly think they could learn some worthwhile things.
But people are “summonsed” to appear in court.
Now we all know that Donald Trump is a dumb cunt but just because he writes that he’s been “summoned” to court, should a news site let him get away with that?
We think at the very least In Queensland should have put (sic) after it. Or just used the right word.
***
Okay, which of you smart arses out there picked up our deliberate mistake in the very first paragraph at the top? Young tyro is a tad repetitive. If you bristled at that, you might have a future in the wonderful craft of journalism …. if only there were some jobs to be had!
Want to be alerted immediately a new blog hits Australia’s longest running and most offensive satire site? Simply click on the Follow sign or the link below to be emailed new yarns the moment they are uploaded! The very second we go far too far – and trust us we will – you can then quickly unfollow via the three dots!
The Bug Online 