If she ever hears it, that is

Know what really gives the washed-up, bitter, old hacks who compile this column the absolute and total shits?

It’s knowing that regardless of the countless mainstream mediocre clangers we’ve exposed over the years, it’s a pretty safe bet that many of them are never addressed in-house, in the dying craft of real newspapers or on the various electronic mediocre platforms.

Our compilers are of an age where what’s left of their brains remembers the ongoing lessons being taught to tyros from their older, wiser, more experienced colleagues. Silly them, hey? Cadet counselling! Well, we never!

Those who write the MGH suspect that the many failures of reporters nowadays are never brought to their attention so they can become better practitioners of the once-noble craft of journalism. And, sadly, that could very well be because their seniors in newsrooms around the nation just maybe are no longer good enough to pick up the mistakes being made. Or, worse still, are aware but couldn’t give a fuck because journalism in this country has become a bit of a joke

And so we come now to a major reporting blunder on Nine News last night from Amanda Copp, their national affairs reporter.

In her assessment of seats still in doubt here’s what she had to say about the electorate of Ryan in Brisbane. A week after the election, Copp declared that the once strongly Liberal seat remained “a toss up between the Libs and the Greens”!

Not even close enough to take the cigar out of the humidor.

The grim reality is that the Liberal candidate in Ryan, Maggie Forrest, way back on election night wasn’t so much still remaining a toss up; she had been well and truly tossed out of contention. Forrest was well and truly felled (sorry!) on the night.

Even back then, the lady in blue had about as much chance of winning that seat as Barnaby Joyce has of walking past an open pub door or Ralph Babet has of ever making a comment that anyone with a measurable IQ could firstly understand and then agree with.

The seat will be won by the sitting Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown or the Labor candidate Rebecca Hack, depending on who finishes second behind the ring-barked (sorry!) Forrest. For the past week, the Australian Electoral Commission has done its projections on the basis that Labor will finish third and Watson-Brown will romp into her second term. At the time of posting this, the AEC has Watson-Brown ahead of Forrest, already bulldozed into giant heaps to be burnt later (sorry!), by 11,821 votes. If that’s a toss-up, Amanda Copp, our MGH compilers have 24 Walkley awards among them.

Copp needs to cop the blame for that monstrous fuck-up. It beggars belief that someone whose job it is to know these things – these very basic things such as an understanding of our compulsory preferential voting system – couldn’t get that right. There was nothing more nationally affairy than the federal election and anyone with a reasonable knowledge of politics and who’s a member of the Canberra press gallery would have known the state of play in Ryan back on May 3.

And as we mentioned at the top, what’s the chances that in the cold light of this Sunday morning, Copp remains blissfully unaware of her blunder? That she hasn’t cottoned on to it herself and blushing just a little bitt or whoever was in the editing booth hasn’t apologised to her for not picking it up. Ditto for anyone in the mix before show-your-ignorance time?

Want to be alerted immediately a new blog hits Australia’s longest running and most offensive satire site? Simply click on the Follow sign or the link below to be emailed new yarns the moment they are uploaded! The very second we go far too far – and trust us we will – you can then quickly unfollow via the three dots!

Follow The Bug Online on WordPress.com