Take a bow, today’s fake front page of The Sydney Morning Herald!

It’s the worst fake front page ever in the time the masthead has been sucking up to Hardly Normal – sorry, Harvey Norman – to save its printed version from the extinction some industry observers suspect is coming sooner than later. Well, the mid-week editions anyway.

Up to now, the paper’s editors have at least tried to make their fake front page look a little bit like a real metropolitan newspaper’s front-page as Harvey Norman permits them that top half in that four-page wraparound that readers immediately toss aside or use to line their cocky-cage with.

But as Ned Ryleson might say, today’s (Saturday’s) fake front page is a DOOZEY!

That’s it on the left above and below. Bugsters, have you ever seen a more pathetic attempt at a real newspaper’s front page? Embarrassing, that’s what it is. What’s the point size of the splash there? 36 point? Or perhaps, more importantly, what’s the point? Full stop.

Up to now, the paper’s editors and layout folk have at least tried their best in that half-page that Harvey Norman has graciously given them to look a little bit professional, even when occasionally they’ve opted for a splash that the real front-page on page three didn’t agree with.

Yes, you read right there. The real front page is page three. We’ve had enough fun with that over the journey as the paper’s subeditors have sometimes had trouble linking stories that spill over inside the book to their original source, namely “From Page 1” or “From our cover story”. That sort of confusion.

And we’ll end with a question we’ve asked many times but never put to columnist Peter FitzSimons: how do you feel each time your fine words are thrown away into that wastepaper bin or end up lining that cocky cage? Surely, it must hurt?

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Here’s an item from a recent edition of News Crap Australia’s Brisbane daily turdbloid The Courier-Mail that our MGH teams suggest may point to a lack of concentration among its production staff – or more likely, a lack of production staff.

Our researchers are certain that the husband of the missing Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy is relieved that someone had been arrested and charged by Victoria Police over her alleged murder.

They are just as certain he wouldn’t like being identified in some readers’ minds as that someone by careless or non-existent production protocols.

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