The never-ending fuck-ups in journalism over the overuse, underuse and misuse of the words “alleged” and “allegedly” are usually dealt with by this column’s younger sibling, Mediocre Bytes.

But the example we’re about to share deserves this column’s attention.

We present (at top and below) this story from yesterday’s (Tuesday’s) edition of The Sydney Morning Herald.

We’re guessing that all you clever and logical BUGgers out there can immediately spot the dreadful error in the heading for that yarn?

We also suspect that someone who can’t even spell the word journalism will spot the clanger too.

Anyone? You up the back here.

That’s right! The words LATEST JONES VICTIM clearly infers guilt on the part of Allan Jones. Calling a complainant a victim does exactly that, There is no need for intervention from this particular lady (below, right), nor the costly journey through the court process.

The story put the word allegedly in the right place but the damage has already been done.

The tired, washed-up, old hacks who compile the MB and MGH columns choked on their rum-laden Fruit Loops the moment they spotted this monster mistake. And while it’s been a very long time since they passively smoked on a metropolitan daily subs desk, it took one of them about … ooh, let’s say … half a minute to come up with this one.

Okay, maybe it needs a bit of work but half-a-minute to fix an egregious error. It’s not rocket surgery, is it?

And what’s the saddest thing about all this? The SMH website today still has that heading running in all its incompetent non-glory, which says one of two things: they don’t know it’s just really sloppy and dangerous journalism, or they do know and couldn’t give a rat’s arse.

Finally, we’ve used the word dangerous for a very good reason. Jones deserves a fair trial if it comes to that, and a major newspaper finding him guilty could harm his chances of getting that. And you couldn’t blame Jones’s lawyers for arguing that a newspaper’s reckless indifference to the basic principle of the once-great craft of journalism – fair, balance and accurate reporting – could just make it impossible for Jones to get a fair shake out of all this.

Jones is entitled to the basic cornerstone of our justice system – he is innocent (and has no victims) until proven guilty – something far too many people at the SMH have forgotten or ignored to their shame.

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