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.

You BUGgers out there might disagree but Mediocre Bytes doesn’t normally poke fun at TV news readers who suffer a slip of the tongue. We’ve always had bigger small fish to fry than cases where there’s no proof whatsoever that said talking heads knowingly said something really, really, silly.

A case in point is Nine News Queensland co-presenter Joel Dry who kicked off a story late in last night’s main 6pm bulletin about an Albanese election promise with this: “…as from Wednesday, more first-home buyers can access home loans with just a 5 cent deposit”.

We all know he meant to say “5 per cent deposit” (unless some klutz put that on his teleprompter, purely by accident of course!) and we are absolutely certain that there would not be a single journalist at 9 News who doesn’t know the plan involves that 5 per cent deposit.

Still, it was kinda funny and, we must confess, got us rather excited because Dry has had an excellent first few months alongside Melissa Downes and as far as we can tell, he is yet to read out some over-the-top clickbait rubbish that some non-journo has made Melissa sprout over the journey.

As for last night, we just hope Treasurer Jim Chalmers wasn’t listening in. The scheme surely would be totally unworkable and send the Budget into an LNP-worthy deficit death spiral with so many home seekers rushing to take up such a generous offer and the government forced to cough up a much, much, larger share.

***

This next item shows how easy it might be to find enough copy for a Mediocre Bytes column every day. In a matter of hours, even.

We refer to Matthew Doran’s report on ABC News Breakfast this morning that of some 50 Israelis still held captive by Hamas in Gaza, some 20 are still thought to be alive!

We’re not having a go at Doran here – his work from the Middle East has been brilliant and were it up to us, we’d shower him in Walkleys – but he’s just one of many scribes over the past two years who have reported that dead people are being held captive in Gaza.

The bitter, washed-up old hacks who compile this column and its more serious sibling, Media Glass House, have always thought that possibility is complete tosh! Illogical nonsense. So you know what we finally did this morning? We asked an old mate, AI, a simple question: Can dead people be held captive?

Now, we’re not saying The Bug and AI are right and Matthew and other countless scribes are wrong but what if they are right? It would mean that millions of Australians are currently being held captive in cemeteries around the nation!

***

This next nice little pick-up is from a not-so-old journo mate some of The Bug’s staff worked alongside of in Brisbane in another lifetime; perhaps even in another millennium.

But we’ll let Dean Felton explain things: “Probably time someone told the Sunday Herald Sun that the picture they’ve been running all day to headline their AFL grand final coverage, of Brisbane co-captain Lachie Neale with his premiership medallion, is from 2024. As it says on the medallion”.

Oh, dear!!

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