…allegedly!
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.
Memo to all those tyros out there starting out on their wonderful journey practising the once-respected craft of journalism: the proper use of “alleged” and “allegedly” is not rocket surgery!
Apply those two words properly and you’ll be amazed how quickly your cadetships – if any still exist in the mainstream mediocre, that is – will rush by.
So a recap. People are charged with something. Not allegedly something. Example: The drunken NRL star appeared in the Magistrates Court charged with thrusting his….”. See? Eazy peazy? He has not been charged with “allegedly thrusting his…”.
But it’s absolutely the right time to use such words if you write something like this: “Police will allege the drunken NRL star stuck his ….” or “The drunken NRL star allegedly stuck his ….”
But there are also occasions when “alleged” and “allegedly” are dreadfully overused for no good purpose, and we proudly present this recent example from ABC News online (top and below).
The NSW Police Commissioner made it very clear shortly after this dreadful unalleged incident at the aged care facility that Clare was zapped by the copper. The use of the taser was never, ever, in doubt. The strings were attached.
Likewise, there was no “alleged” incident with police. There was a real, true-life, incident between Clare and the police that no-one on any side of this deadly affair – her family, the care-home staff, the police or the taser manufacturer – is denying. The poor dear could still be alive if the incident was only an alleged one.
So there you are, journalism tyros! It’s not hard to get the basics right. So if you allegedly do still exist out there in medialand, spend a short time practising the basics and why not seek help from any cadet counsellors that may or may not still allegedly exist.
PS: Did anyone spot the deliberate tautology we inserted at the beginning of this yarn? That’s right. Drunken NRL star. If you spotted that, there might be a career path for you in journalism … if any still allegedly exist. (Memo subs: make sure we’ve used practising the right way up the top there or we’re going to look really stupid!).
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A leap of faith!
Channel 9 News co-presenter Andrew Lofthouse had the perfect tease lead-in to a segment on Monday night’s 6pm bulletin on how a Gold Coast man escaped his burning high-rise flat thirteen storeys above the ground.
The poor chap was “…surrounded by flames and left with no choice but to leap to safety,” Lofthouse told us.
The only trouble is this. The amateur vision used did not show the man leaping anywhere. He does use his considerable height to scramble across an adjoining balcony railing to escape possible death and, sure, he could easily have fallen which very likely would have been the end of him. Even the reporter talks about the man “climbing out and up to safety”. There’s talk of scaling but nothing about leaping.
Perhaps he did leap? Maybe the station has deliberately excluded video of the death-defying leap so as not to tempt copycats come Schoolies time and, if so, good on them.
And if that leap did take place, Mediocre Bytes apologises if, for just the shortest of moments, we thought maybe here was a case of never letting the facts get in the way of a good lead-in promo and whatever catchy word leapt into the mind of whoever wrote the words Lofthouse used.
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Co-host Michael Rowland declared on ABC News Breakfast this morning that Barbie, due to open in cinemas this Thursday, was a great film.
We wonder how many stars out of five he gave it at the preview screening he attended. Surely great equals five?
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