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.

Sadly, it seems far too early in the New Year to be highlighting some of the regular, albeit smaller mistakes and missteps, that blight our poorly trained MSM but here we are.

And we refer to the ongoing misuse of the words collision and collided, the over, under and misuse of allegedly, and the always present dangling participle that the tyros of the craft appear incapable of avoiding, unless they do it for fun and on purpose, that is!

Let’s present them in reverse order. Firstly we are indebted to Bug follower and regular commentator Cyril for this dangling participle from Aunty.

Cyril, we fear there is an enormous amount of entertainment to be had on this front as 2025 unfolds.

We move onto the way so many journos stuff up the use of alleged and allegedly.

Cue Nine News Queensland’s 6pm bulletin on New Year’s Day. What tickled our Mediocre Bytes compilers most about one particular report was how utterly convinced newsreader Jonathan Uptin and whoever wrote the strap at the bottom were convinced that a man had deliberately rammed his ute into a Brisbane house in the final minutes of 2024.

Uptin’s leadin started with this: “A reckless driver has sent New Year’s celebrations into chaos, ramming a ute through their home”. Reckless and ramming. Sounds all pretty rash or impetuous – read deliberate – to our MB people.

And whoever wrote the strap at the bottom of Ha-Teya Gripske’s report also had no doubt as to the driver’s motives and intentions.

To her credit, Gripske threw an “allegedly” here and there into her report, as in “the man allegedly behind the wheel” and this effort: “Nine News understands that that man allegedly tried to leave on foot but he was arrested a short time later.” We might quibble of possible overuse of the word and we would have preferred … “Nine News understands that that man tried to leave on foot but police believe they arrested him a short time later.” It’s not all that hard when you think about it.

At the time this news report aired, a man had only been charged with drink-driving. Maybe he won’t face any further charges now that senior people at Nine News Queensland have already found him guilty of potentially worse crimes.

And finally, that hoary old chestnut of how and when to use “collided”. There was a time long past that any cadet in a competent, professionally run news outfit with now-extinct cadet counsellors (or even senior people who cared about passing on their skills) would probably have been taught on day one that a collision is between two moving objects. And to avoid apportioning any blame, a truck and a bus collide, not a truck collided with a bus!

And seeing trees, signposts, fences, houses, etc, etc, are rather rooted in place, vehicles do not collide with them! They …. wait for it! … hit them! What crisp, wonderful and correct use of a three-letter word! Struck is a bit longer but still okay.

So, sadly, we present below a few examples from Aunty recently, and on the same day!

Sadly, those mangroves were still very much on the move on that night’s ABC Queensland news service.

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