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.

“Tonight, election campaigning gets under way in Queensland!”

And so began Sarah Ferguson’s lead-in spiel to last night’s edition of 7.30 on ABC television.
Ah, Sarah! Not even close enough to make mention of the non-presentation of a cigar.

For the information of those ignorant southerners who made Sarah read out that shit – and we sadly assume they’re journalists while fervently hoping they’re not – the official Queensland election campaign has been running now for more than a week, with the starter’s gun fired on Tuesday, October 1.

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The washed-up, bitter, old hacks who compile Mediocre Bytes always marvel at how the tyros of TV news reporting never, ever, seem to pause to think through the descriptive words they choose and use for the events they are covering. It is especially embarrassing when the video used for any particular story clearly shows their choice of words to be wildly inaccurate.

The best such howler recently? The fishermen rescued after “clinging to their sunken boat”. Breathtakingly silly/absurd/illogical.

Another recent example comes from the Nine News Queensland reporter who told the 4pm afternoon bulletin on Monday that police had taken down a man at a south-east service station “from all angles”. The vision showed otherwise. Two maybe. Seven or so angles at a pinch. But clearly not all. Not nearly enough coppers to achieve that.

The aforementioned bitter hacks often wonder when – or if – it finally happens in a young journalist’s training and time spent on the job where logical thought and the true meaning of words and phrases kick in and an alarm automatically goes off in their brain that the words they are penning or rehearsing in their minds in advance of recording a voiceover need urgent revision.

Still, “from all/every angle” seems to be catching. Lily Greer on Nine News Queensland last night (Wednesday) while covering severe storms in southern Queensland declared that “ice projectiles” had been “flying in from every angle”.

Our hacks accept they weren’t on the ground with Lily but the vision seemed to debunk the notion that hail was “flying in from every angle” and our hacks who’ve seen a helluva lot of hailstorms can’t recall hail ever acting in that manner. But to be fair to Lily who is an impressive and competent young journalist, maybe it did on this one occasion. Climate change is indeed changing the way climate events happen.

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