Our Media Glass House compilers posed a very simple collective question the other day: Is the Ten Network news out of Brisbane at 5pm just as bad as Nine News Queensland and Seven News an hour later when it comes to promoting the myth that youth crime in Queensland is out of control and on the rise?

Or put another way: is the Ten Network just as obsessed as its free-to-air commercial neighbours in ridding Queensland of the Steven Miles Labor government come 26 October? And to do that, they’ve got to totally ignore the latest government/police figures that show a slight drop in youth crime across the Sunshine State.

Here’s what happened. Our compilers were pretty sure they heard Ten Network News last Sunday arvo declare fairly early on in the bulletin that youth crime in Queensland continued to spiral out of control. No ifs, no buts. It was getting worse! Hey! Hey! Hi! Ho! Miles and Labor have got to go!

Ever the professionals (despite being washed up old hacks), our compilers wanted to check the words they heard, so on Monday they went online to 10 play, the network’s catchup service.

Monday’s 5pm service was there for replay, but not Sundays. Or any other recent editions for that matter. The other four news services available to view were from mid July.

Which makes no sense at all, right? Especially, say, for someone who’s been out of the city for a few days and would like to catch up with recent bulletins.

Well, we checked again this morning and the same situation remains largely the case. Last night’s (Tuesday’s 5pm bulletin) is there for replay but the other four available are from Monday to Thursday, July 15 to 18. (image at top). Ten had already gone to the cost and time taken to prepare the Monday night bulletin for catchup so what? They couldn’t even be bothered keeping that one available? Do that a few more times and you have a half-dozen CURRENT bulletins on offer. Simples.

There’s been a lot of talk over recent days about the parlous state of this nation’s free-to-air television networks and how their services across metropolitan and regional Oz could suffer greatly or even collapse completely without hundreds of millions of dollars of online betting firm advertisements.

The current state of 10 play doesn’t hold out much hope for the Ten Network, widely regarded as being the most vulnerable of the free-to-air commercial networks.

If 10 play can’t afford to keep an up-to-date supply of recent news broadcasts to catch up with, what else are they not very good at?

Like, maybe, just once proving itself to be a professional and balanced news service by reporting the state of youth crime in Queensland accurately and giving a government some credit if police are starting to get a very serious problem under some control, no matter how minor that improvement might be?

News bulletins should be factual, right? Well, that at least was once the case.

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