It might take some time before we know whether Nine News Brisbane reporter Kate Lambe has the makings of a really top-notch, top-shelf, gold-standard journalist.
But in the meantime we can just be grateful she picked the fourth estate for her career choice and not the law. The bitter, old, washed up hacks who compile this column are especially glad she’s not a defence lawyer. They reckon she’d be terrible at it.
Even worse, for that matter, if her lawyering skills ever found her on the bench. If she had, North Queensland Cowboys star Valentine Holmes would be in a heap of trouble right now over a picture of him with something in his mouth (at top)!
Ms Lambe SM would not have needed any chemical analysis of the contents of that white bag in Holmes’s mouth and would have simply slotted the man, or imposed a heft fine, for possession of a serious illegal drug.
Let us explain. Newsreader Mia Glover (below, left) began Nine News Brisbane’s 6pm service on Sunday with the news that Holmes was at “the centre of a white powder scandal” that had sparked multiple investigations. Before passing the baton to reporter Lambe a little while later, Glover reminded us that Holmes was being investigated over a photo that showed Holmes with “a bag of white powder”.
Aided by the SELFIE SCANDAL strapline, there appears to be no doubt in these two ladies’ minds that Holmes is guilty of something rather bad. WHITE POWDER!!!!
And that’s more or less confirmed with Lambe then taking up the case for the prosecution: “In it (a photo Holmes put up on his Instagram account and which someone screensnapped before he took it down) you can see Valentine Holmes holding a drink and also holding what appears to be a WHITE POWDER in his mouth”.
Should this ever go to court, it’s not hard to hear Ms Lambe SM declaring: “I’ve seen enough! Holmes, I find you guilty! Court officials, take him away!”
The bottom line is that while Glover and Lambe have Xray vision, we mere mortals can’t see any white powder. What’s in that little white bag might be sugar, white or brown, or saccharin granules. Or a no-brand T-bag.
Let’s explain this another way. For the sake of Glover and Lambe, our MGH art department has provided images of two items that not only don’t look like white powder but in fact are not white powder.
Much like, when you think about it, what’s in Holmes’ mouth does not look anything like white powder either.
The MGH always urges journalists – relatively new or with decades of experience – to simply use their eyes and their brains and their commonsense when crafting their yarns or their news leadins.
To say what Holmes has in his mouth is white powder breaks all those rules but, worse of all, clearly suggests terrible drugtaking wrongdoing … ie, a scandal.
Lambe looks like she has a long way to go to establish her credentials as an excellent scribe plying her trade to the best of her ability.
PS: Yes, we know Holmes is a famous rugby league player and seeing he is seen relaxing over a drink, presumably with equally overpaid mates, there’s a chance that white bag might just not contain sugar or saccharine granules or a teeth whitener paste or indeed that no-brand tea-bag and could in fact be hiding from view something whitish and powdery and very, very, naughty and the sort of thing that stupid league players not only take but capture themselves doing it. But it’s not the point we’ve hopefully made here.
PPS: Both The Courier-Mail and the ABC simply desribed what Holmes had in his mouth as a white bag, albeit a small one. The Courier spoiled things a tad by saying it “appeared” to be a white bag. It did more than just that.
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