Ben Hart might be a communications expert but he appears to know bugger all about how the American system of justice works or, presumably, our own here in Oz.

That’s the opinion formed by the bitter, old, washed-up hacks who compile this column after watching Hart do the What the Papers Say segment on ABC News Breakfast on Wednesday morning.

Our compilers are referring to the quaint central feature of the justice system on both sides of the Pacific – a person’s right to the assumption of innocence until they plead guilty or are found guilty by a court judge or jury.

Hart is the founder and managing director of Fireside where his Linked-In profile tells us of his “growing conviction that organisational storytelling must move beyond the safety of traditional corporate messaging and instead be built on interesting, emotionally-connecting stories of purpose and impact”.

Hart’s final topic on his appearance with Michael Rowland and Bridget Brennan was the arrest and charging of Luigi Mangione with that New York footpath murder of the health insurance company executive a few days back.

Take it away, Ben!

He told us that Mangione had come from a well-off family and that …. wait for it…. before his arrest at at Pennsylvania McDonald’s, he “was reported missing in the last couple of weeks before he did the killing”.

Ben obviously thinks Luigi Mangione needs to go straight past any courtroom door and go directly to Rikers Island, Sing Sing, Attica or Five Points Correctional Facility and, no, he will not be able to take his pick of cruel incarceration venue.

Before we leave this topic, our compilers were interested in the news that Mangione has only been charged with second-degree murder. So here’s a tip for anyone thinking of swinging behind an innocent and totally unaware man on a footpath anywhere and not just New York City and pumping him full of lead: make sure you’re suffering from back pains. Or a migraine. Or niggling bone spurs! Or that the Christmas toys you were given as a child were awful. Any medical or mental condition that may help in your defence in case you do end up in a court and not sent straight to jail.

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While we’re having a go at “guilty until proven innocent” frames of mind that are far too common in our mainstream mediocre, let’s say a big cheerio to Jacob Chicco who some days ago, when reporting for Nine News Queensland on a home invasion where shots were fired, told us that police had arrested one of the two offenders.

Oh dear! Just a few simple word changes and we could easily have seen Chicco roll (sorry about that but we couldn’t resist) with a far more professional and balanced report.

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Back to ABC News Breakfast briefly. We at the MGH are indebted to that Wednesday morning program for alerting us to the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu hates champagne and only smokes cigars between meetings. It’s the sort of detail about how decent and considerate Bibi is when he takes a puff so as not to cause discomfort to anybody that you don’t get on those rubbishy commercial breakfast programs!

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