… of foolish flummery and fluff!

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.

The compilers of this column are very fond of regular Nine News Queensland weekend stand-in news reader, Paul Taylor.

Comes across as not just a very competent presenter but a cheerful and nice bloke as well. His little bon mots at the end of reports are thoughtful and considered.

He’s even rather cute and cuddly, according to one of our bitter, washed up, old hacks who collect items for this post. So much so that he wouldn’t mind giving Taylor one, even though he’s been heterosexual all his life and has four grandkids.

So it was with a heavy heart and with some disappointment that all of our compilers heard Taylor last night (Saturday) kick off a yarn about the second day of the Gold Coast Show with this: “It was the Ekka meets the Gold Coast today…”

Absolute, risible, drivel, of course, and poor Taylor as a senior newshound and presenter probably knew that the moment those nine words escaped his lips.

One of our compilers even threw his empty Bundy rum and coke cup at the TV monitor and shouted: ”No, there is no direct financial connection between the Royal Queensland Show (Ekka) and the Gold Coast Show; both are independent agricultural and community shows that are part of a network of Queensland show societies, and are often supported by different levels of government grants rather than a shared financial entity. The Ekka is run by the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland (RNA), a single charity, while the Gold Coast Show is run by its own distinct show society.”

He was only reading out an AI-created response to a question he had quickly posed while none of his colleagues was watching but he was spot on. The Royal Queensland Show (the Ekka!) has been held at Bowen Hills in Brisbane since not long after Captain Cook first circumnavigated Australia in 1788!

Neither the Ekka or anyone associated with it travelled down the M1 to the Southport foreshore to claim a share of the Gold Coast’s show glory. Facts surely still matter in journalism and while we don’t know who penned those words for Taylor, someone must be held accountable for such colourfully creative yet fictional toss.

Of late, this column and its sibling Media Glass House have despaired of the growing trend of, mainly, electronic mediocre tyros who seem incapable of hearing the warning bells that should ring loudly in their heads when they prefer fiction over facts; illogical yet flowery colour writing over commonsense.

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