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.

Over the journey, this column and its more serious industry-watch sibling, Media Glass House, have covered examples of where news bulletins have refrained from showing the exact moment when a fatal collision happens.

Be it planes above or on the ground, train or road crashes, pedestrians being flung off this mortal coil,

We’ve sat on the fence a bit on this one; such footage might be awfully tempting for news editors to run yet perhaps unwarranted if the tragedy is local and there’s a good chance the grieving relatives and friends might be watching. Example: The Sea World helicopter collision that killed four. Most commercial news outlets and the ABC refrained from using footage of the two copters coming together, It wasn’t until the recent coroner’s inquest that Channel 7 broke ranks and showed the in-cabin turmoil and the audio that followed the collision. Wasn’t pretty.

A distant example was the passenger plane-military helicopter collision in January last year over the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport that killed all 67 people aboard both aircraft. Most if not all Aussie bulletins cut the footage short even though those killed would be unlikely to have had family and friends grieving Down Under.

And so we come to Nine News Queensland’s 6pm bulletin on Tuesday and the fatal collision on the runway of New York’s La Guardia airport between a passenger jet and a firetruck.

In the segment, Nine in quick succession showed the collision and the fiery aftermath. And let’s not forget the two passenger jet pilots found their flying days well and truly over at the very moment their cockpit was pulverised.

.But for the third and final time the footage was broadcast, the Nine News editors decided to spare their viewers the trauma of watching people die by stopping the video before the point of impact. And. no, it wasn’t the end of the report that might have explained why the clip had to be shortened.

We can’t explain what Nine News Queensland hoped to achieve by that two-bob-each-way approach to the tragedy. Ignoring feelings but then protecting them? Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

Any ideas, you BUGgers out there?

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