At the very outset, the bitter, twisted, old hacks who compile this column are, in no way, shape, or form, accusing Lisa Millar of plagiarism.
Lesser mortals whose skills for balance and professionalism were not honed in the furnace of mainstream journalism over many years might level that charge against the co-host of the ABC’s News Breakfast but not our column compilers!
Let’s explain what happened. Here’s what Lisa (pictured at top, left) said on her program this morning, about 7.40am eastern standard time: “It’s cup day and there are only two certainties this afternoon. About two dozen horses will run around the track at Flemington for the 163rd running of the Melbourne Cup and the board of the Reserve Bank will sit round the table in Sydney and decide on the direction of interest rates….
Just short of 24 hours earlier, here’s what ABC business reporter Daniel Ziffer (pictured at top, right, and below right) said on the ABC’s Queensland news and presumably around the country’s nightly network as well: “There’s only two certainties tomorrow… some horses will run around a track and the Reserve Bank will sit around a table and decide the direction of interest rates.”
Can you BUGers out there spot the zifference….. sorry! …. difference? Not much, hey? The basic structure – the play on death and taxes – is there in all its glory. Many of the words are the same. Lisa’s version updates the timeline as needed and adds just a little bit of information as to what track those horses will be running around and roughly the number of nags doing that.
So, those mere mortals mentioned above might be tempted to conclude, seeing the Ziff came first, that there’s a very good chance that Lisa has indeed committed a Gleeso. That is, using another’s intellectual property without contribution.
But the MGH will not be doing that, even though one of our compilers did suggest that the Ziff probably penned the words first and someone at News Breakfast this morning fed much the same version into Lisa’s autocue. (Editor’s note: He is being counselled for making that unfair assumption!)
The alternate and quite believable scenario is that seeing both Lisa and the Ziff work out of the ABC’s Melbourne studios so there’s a very good chance that they are reading copy prepared by a scribe in that Melbourne newsroom. And with such an early start each morning, Lisa would have been blissfully unaware of the Ziff’s to-camera piece the night before, seeing she would have been sound asleep at the time.
Yes, sometimes the compilers of this column and its sibling Mediocre Bytes really do tire of always being fair, balanced and professional but someone has to do it, seeing there’s fuck all evidence of it across most of this nation’s disgusting and discredited mainstream mediocre!
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