… but who else deserves praise?

With just under a month still to go, have The Bug’s Media Glass House Beat-up of the Year judges already found the 2024 winner?

That’s their suspicion after evaluating a recent Nine News Queensland story by crime reporter Bailey Kenzie. But here’s the judges’ quandary: they want one of Kenzie’s colleagues at the Nine news studio to share the honour but have not yet been able to identify that person. Can they please come forward?

Nevertheless, our judges were left virtually dumbstruck by the efforts of Kenzie and the unidentified staffer to totally beat up a localised police operation into something that somehow, unbelievably, has smashed crime Queensland-wide and taken the state’s most hardened criminals off the streets.

Here’s how our senior Beat-Up of the Year judge explained things: “We’re still all shaking our heads over how Kenzie’s report on a week-long police operation in south Brisbane – upholding Jack’s Law, the right of coppers to search people at random for mainly knives but presumably other weapons – could have been so mercilessly beaten up by him and his unidentified fellow staffer, the one responsible for this on-line promo.

“The specialist police operation SMASHING CRIMINAL ACTIVITY ACROSS QUEENSLAND!

“Then there was Kenzie’s account on the police operation in the south Brisbane district. He talked about ‘the specialist police unit … smashing high-crime suburbs’.

“And this doozey in particular: the operation was ‘taking our state’s most serious offenders off the streets’.

“These serious offenders presumably included the young man shown in Kenzie’s report, a tourist, given his accent, who did not know it was illegal to have the knife on him – the one he planned to go camping with. May this most-hardened of the state’s criminals languish in jail for a very long time! Double adult time for adult knife crime! Along with the other chap who had a pocket knife!

“This take by Kenzie and his unnamed colleague must surely have impressed their immediate bosses at the network and the greater powers-that-be in Nine Entertainment Co. who we assume directed several years ago that endless reporting of out-of-control crime – particularly youth crime – was the best way to help get a state LNP government elected.

“And that reports like these that conflate a localised police operation somehow into a yarn that the state’s crime rates are being smashed by diligent, hard-working police the length and breadth of the Sunshine State are wonderful examples of balanced and professional journalism as practised by Nine News Queensland.

“And all this is happening even before the Crisafulli government’s adult time for adult crime laws even come into effect!

“At least with statewide crime rates now plummeting because of that South Brisbane District police exercise, Crisafulli won’t have to carry through with his election promise to resign if overall crime numbers that were already falling don’t come down even further. Phew!”

Want to be alerted immediately a new blog hits Australia’s longest running and most offensive satire site? Simply click on the Follow sign or the link below to be emailed new yarns the moment they are uploaded! The very second we go far too far – and trust us we will – you can then quickly unfollow via the three dots!

Follow The Bug Online on WordPress.com