Can the compilers of this column and its sibling Mediocre Bytes be terribly frank? We sometimes wonder whether we should just give up on our campaign to make Nine News Queensland lift its game and be a far more professional unit that really looks like it’s run by journalists.

We’ve given countless examples over time of the pre-6pm promos run during Hot Seat and now Tipping Point that have little bearing to what the actual bulletin says. These plugs sometimes sound very pro-LNP to boot.

We’ve had digs when Andrew Lofthouse and Melissa Downs make introductions to news items that in no, shape or form match the videos that follow, or dovetail neatly with what reporters then end up saying.

Doubt any of this? Let’s take last night’s (Thursday’s) 6pm bulletin for example. During Tipping Point, the plug for the looming news hour’s top yarn was clearly written by someone who couldn’t spell journalist let alone be one. They told of the lead story in an alleged hit-and-run death in a north Brisbane suburb and how …. wait for it … “police tracked down the fleeing offender”. That last word might be wrong as we took a wee while to grab for a pen.

Clearly no need for a messy series of lower court cases and a possible trial in this case. The police got the guy!

Luckily, the bulletin’s report was done well, with an “allegedly” thrown in when needed.

That’s not to let the Nine News Queensland team off the hook. We probably wouldn’t need to wait too many nights for some breathless tyro reporter to be telling us about how some youth criminals threatened some homeowners but police found them hiding nearby and they have been charged!

Clearly no need for a messy series of lower court cases and a possible trial in this case either. The police got the young crooks making all Queenslanders living in fear and too afraid to leave their homes and the sooner Voice for Victims has another anti-Queensland government rally the better!

And the doozey from last night?

Poor Melissa Downes (pictured at top) wove in and out of the truth of the matter as she introduced the yarn about how “two teens on electric dirt bikes had been caught on camera riding erratically through traffic”.

She added solemnly: “This video shows them weaving in an out of traffic, just one wheel hugging the road.”

The problem with this? Not at any moment in the video that Nine News Queensland chose to share with its viewing shows these two riders “weaving in and out of traffic”.

Which, come to think of it, might have been fairly impossible to do on one wheel.

But the basic question remains. Why, oh, why does Nine News Queensland seem hellbent on damaging its claim to be a professional news outfit with stupid errors such as this one.

Now while this short yarn had no on-screen reporter contribution, was it written for Melissa by a staff scribe who desperately needs to go to Specsavers?

Or was it cobbled together by our pre-bulletin touter whose main job clearly is to do over-the-top promos for “the whole world is watching or at the very least standing still” and “every single Australian will be shocked and dismayed” claims for shit reality shows such as Married at First Sight?

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