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.
Look, Mediocre Bytes is always here to help and the jaded, washed-up, hack former subeditors among its compilers can’t help but get involved when they see a glaring mistake that urgently needs fixing.
And thus it was with this subscriptions ad for The Australian (above) that popped up on one of The Bug‘s Facebook platforms.
It took our people no time at all to make the necessary changes to ensure this national broadshit doesn’t get into trouble with trade practices and other consumer protections laws.
I think I might have been allegedly stabbed!
Just when this column tries hard not to carry on too much about the misuse of “alleged” and “allegedly”, a former newspaper court-reporting mate of ours, Lex Swayn, has alerted us to this effort on Sunday from an ABC lass in Melbourne.
Lex wrote: “I know The Bug cannot keep banging on about alleged incidents, but the lovely girl reporting from Melbourne on ABC News at noon today had me enthralled. I didn’t catch her name, but she referred twice to alleged stabbing incidents. Later in her report she forgot the “alleged” and twice she only referred to them as (just plain old) stabbing incidents. She also said some of the victims were allegedly walking along the road. Later, she reported that a number of weapons had been taken into custody.”
Phew! Allegedly. And we will keep banging on about it. In-office training for tyro scribes seems a very sad thing of the past, so we’ll keep doing our best.
***
Still on the ABC, its 7pm TV news bulletin the other night started its sports reports with the news that Australia had achieved a series clean-sweep with its nine-wicket win over Pakistan at the SCG.
Close but no cigar! It was an eight-wicket win and given all the focus on David Warner’s dismissal so close to the Aussies’ target, you really do wonder how such a simple mistake could be made.
Perhaps all that Albanese government money promised to restore Aunty to professional glory hasn’t started to do its work yet. Or is still yet to flow?
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