The Liberal National Party’s Bowen Hills branch in Brisbane has delivered yet again with the front page in today’s edition of The Courier-Mail.
A pointer to a page 10 story on crime statistics was headlined “Crime out of control”. (main picture)
Our Media Glass House researchers suggest that the headline is clearly a partisan political statement rather than a summary of the figures reported in the story.
To back their stand they point to the fact that Queensland LNP opposition MPs regularly use the line when talking about crime, just as Labor pollies do when they are in opposition.
Our MGH researchers say they are on solid ground in their criticisms of the Brisbane turdbloid’s behaviour because, lo and behold, the story inside today’s edition extensively quotes state Opposition Leader David Crisafulli and the party’s police spokesperson Dale Last who both lay into the Palaszczuk Government on the issue.
And the story gives Mr Last literally the last word in which he says, on cue “….crime is spiralling out of control”.
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On Sunday morning ABC news Online carried a story about some passengers on a flight from Brisbane to Indonesia who behaved so badly so quickly by allegedly drinking too much and vaping that the plane diverted to Darwin to offload them with the help of Australian Federal Police. (below)
But for some reason the identity of the airline was not disclosed, even when the story was updated later in the day to include mobile phone footage taken by another passenger of the alleged offenders being escorted from the plane.
Our MGH teams noted that the story in its original form was illustrated with a picture of a Virgin Australia aircraft.
But they remain puzzled about why no airline name appeared in the story itself.
They say they also remain puzzled about why the actual text of the story was needed when the rather lengthy headline pretty much said it all.
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The attention of our MGH researchers was drawn to the story below appearing last week in News Crap Australia’s daily turdbloid in Brisbane, The Courier-Mail. (below)
It was all about the Brisbane City Council’s decision to drain the popular South Bank riverside lagoon for winter maintenance.
But it also reported that the decision had sparked criticism by “councillors and radio heavyweights” because it means the facility is off limits to those in town for the Women’s Football World Cup.
Well, “councillors” was actually just one local Greens councillor and as for the “radio heavyweights”, in the words of one of our MGH researchers: Who gives a flying fuck about them?
It should be noted that the story didn’t contain any criticisms by actual local people, preferring to give exposure to those with a vested interest in generating local anger.
But the absence of any genuine locals genuinely angry at the situation suggests maybe their isn’t much of that at all.
The five-paragraph story carried three bylines, so it must have been deemed very important at the Courier, although our MGH teams can’t fathom why.
They also do wonder exactly who might have been put out by not being able to take a dip in winter, and they also wonder if the maintenance closure had been deferred, just how badly the attack would have been if the lagoon and city beach were delayed in opening when the warmer weather actually hit.
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Speaking of The Courier-Mail, on numerous occasions our MGH teams have pointed out the manner in which the paper has resorted to padding funeral notices page with in-house ads and lots of white space.
It’s been done to try to disguise the fact that people are just not paying for funeral ads as much as they once did. The mandatory modular layout of such pages would no doubt also be a factor.
But the situation took a strange turn during the past fortnight when our researchers noticed that on at least two occasions, the very same family funeral notice appeared twice on the same page.
While we won’t reproduce the two examples to respect the privacy of the family’s involved, our MGH teams do ask: Is anyone interested in quality control at News Crap these days?
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