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.

What’s that old example they give to explain a journalist’s role? Oh, that’s right! If people are telling that scribe that it’s raining outside and insisting that to be true, the reporter must go over to a window, look out and check for themselves.

It’s not rocket surgery is it?

Which brings us to having a go at whoever created the link (below) for the ABC online story a few days back about the naval vessel that struck the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

Can you BUGers out there see the problem we’ve circled for your viewing displeasure?

Anyone who saw multiple videos of the incident would know that the Mexican naval sloop (there’s a bit of a hint there!) had multiple masts that got smashed about, badly enough for several sailors to tragically lose their lives.

Now, we accept that our graphics guy/gal had only a still image to work with and maybe their creative hub didn’t have a window to the general news room where various screens would have been showing the vessel hitting the bridge and its two main masks being ripped apart.

But shirley they must have seen the live footage sometime, somewhere, taken from more positions than are in the Kama Sutra?

Accuracy used to be important in journalism, right?

***

Here’s another visual blooper from Aunty the other night.

Alan Kohler would know how to spell liaison but clearly some ABC staffer doesn’t.

One of the older and even more bitter of our washed-up column compilers harrumphed! “In my day, if you could spell liaison, commitment, abattoir and remuneration properly, a request for an upgrade was generally approved!”

Now we have nothing to quibble about with our next segment, showing the splash The Sydney Morning Herald ran with last Saturday, May 17.

Except to say “OUCH!

And a timely reminder that if The Bug ever takes legal action against the Nine Entertainment Co. mastheads, we’d better make sure we win! In the case above, the SMH might still have splashed with WAR CRIMINAL if Roberts-Smith had won but the story would probably have been relegated to well inside the edition, possibly as a brief under the fruit and veggie market report if such a thing still exists.

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