Anyone who both escapes and absconds from a hospital deserves to be shot … twice!

Well, that was the immediate reaction of the old, bitter, washed-up, hacks who research and compile this column when they spied this ABC Queensland news piece (above) online yesterday (Friday).

Especially after this escapee/absconder later lunged at police at a suburban residence nearby, forcing one of two coppers to shoot him twice. The other cop was also shot in the thigh with his own revolver during the confrontation. Both of these fine police officers could have been killed all because this person was allowed to escape and abscond!

Terrible news all round, and our compilers were more than just interested in how this chap managed to escape and abscond from an emergency ward where, assumedly, he surely must have been under police arrest, or guard, or something similar? Tied down? How that happened must be of great news value!

Sadly, no information on that was forthcoming in the report by ABC staffers.

The use of the word “escaped” seems to have been solely at the discretion of whoever wrote and/or uploaded the item.

And the word “absconded” was used only in a direct quote from a hospital spokesperson.

Hmm? Escaped and absconded! They almost amount to some shameless click-baitery, do they not? In fact, what our MGH people suspect might have happened is that this chap … wait for it … left the hospital’s ER!

So, all in all then, maybe the item as it appeared online should have avoided the word “escaped” altogether and should have used … “A man said to have absconded from a Queensland hospital was soon after shot twice…..”? It’s called track-covering if nothing else.

When it comes to the basics of practising the craft of journalism, it’s not rocket surgery, is it?
And we won’t even mention the use of the word “occurred”.

Oops, we just did! Has it never happened (yes, we’re sarcastically making a point here) to these reporters that “happened” is the write (please don’t right in!) way to go?

***

To finish, our MGH researchers draw our reader’s attention to the item below that appeared recently in the far right-wing Murdoch media’s far right-wing broadshit The Australian.

They have archived it in the Right on Cue file, or more precisely the Far Right on Cue file.

What a truly dreadful, shitty, excuse for a real newspaper.

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