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.

Some university training helps, of course, but the bitter, twisted, old hacks who compile this column have always reckoned that the best journos generally possess a natural dose of commonsense and logic that no certificate or degree can ever instill.

And rather unfortunately someone lacking in commonsense and logic was responsible for the graphic (above) that appeared behind Nine News Queensland newsreader Melissa Downes in last night’s (Wednesday’s) 6pm bulletin.

As Melissa was doing the obligatory warning that the next story would contain the image of a First Nations person who has died so that viewers could look away if need be, who was depicted behind her?

You’ve got it right, BUGgers. A photo of the lady who sadly lost her life in the north Queensland floods.

What’s the best word to describe that blunder? Silly? stupid? illogical? Totally lacking in commonsense? Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

So over on Aunty, did the 7pm news bulletin make the same mistake? No. All very professional. The viewer warning first. Then the image. You know it makes sense.

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Let’s stick with Nine News Queensland because, bless their cotton socks, they can often provide an entire Mediocre Bytes column from just the one nightly bulletin.

So here is Melissa a little later in the bulletin talking about a “heart-stopping” arrest down south.
We’re not sure how many viewers had their hearts stop while watching cops arrest a woman at a servo but we suspect not many.

Maybe Melissa was suggesting the woman’s heart stopped when she was tasered? Possible, but very doubtful. Can being tasered stop a heart anyway? Maybe. But we don’t think that is what whoever wrote than guff for Melissa to read out was implying.

Gross overuse of hyperbole is our best guess. Nine News Queensland is not alone in being good at that.

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And finally that same bulletin banged on relentlessly in teasers for their final story about “precious gems” – diamonds – being made in a matter of hours in a laboratory.

We’re not 100 per cent sure but suspect that the manufactured “diamonds” might look to the naked eye like a precious gem but are anything but. The prices these laboratory-made “precious gems” sell for gives us the biggest hint of that.

Does popping an Alka-Seltzer tablet into a cheap bottle of Aussie chardonnay make it French champagne?

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