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.
The tired, bitter, washed-up, old hacks who compile this column and The Bug‘s other critical media forum, Media Glass House, will have to be much sharper from now on following a change to 9now, Channel 9’s video catch-up TV service.
For the umpteenth time (a little bit of hyperbole there befitting what comes next) 9now has dramatically changed once more what it offers viewers keen to catch up on news items from Nine network stations around the nation.
Until recently, seven past episodes of the 6pm capital-city news bulletins were available to check stories of interest. Mediocre Bytes thought a week of tapes was a pretty good service. People are out of town or action for some days; a week allows them to catch up on local happenings via 9now.
Bu just the other day, for whatever reason, 9now cut back the service to just two nights, and as you can see from the image at top, they slough off the screen fairly quickly.
Why have they done this? Saving money doesn’t make much sense, seeing they’ve gone to the time and expense anyway of preparing and uploading the bulletins, with annoying ad breaks inserted that supposedly give some income. Leaving them online for a week would cost no more, surely?
No. We think the change might be just to give us at The Bug the shits, because we’re slack and often take some days to check something we’ve seen. We think Nine might have checked the stats and found we’re the only people checking older stories, just so we can take the mickey out of them!
Here’s a perfect example. Some nights ago, a 9 News Brisbane reporter used a phrase (at least we think he did) that could have been a hyperbole-of-the year entrant. He ended a segment on the Brisbane 2032 Olympics being exactly nine years away by declaring the event was taking place “as Olympics fever sweeps Queensland”.
Or something like that. Absolute bullshit and flowery, colourful, over-the-top stuff that this presumably young reporter might just learn to avoid as his journalism career unfolds, with Mediocre Bytes providing the cadet counselling that no longer exists across the craft.
So we’re sorry we can’t get his exact words right because of the 9now changes. We can’t mention the reporter’s name although it might have been McKenzie something or other.
And with our research/double checking options now very much restricted at 9now, aren’t we going to look just a little silly if he said something like “…as football (or Matildas) fever sweeps Queensland”? Hearing loss often comes hand in hand with being old, bitter and twisted.
As all you BUGgers would know, The Bug hates inaccuracy. But if we’ve fucked this one up big time, we’re blaming Peter Costello!
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