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.

On a recent trip to Sydeney, one of our bitter, old and twisted MB compilers grabbed a copy of The Sun-Herald and eagerly sought out some silly little errors to have fun with.

So, as Julie Andrews once said “let’s start at the very beginning” why not start with a closer look at the edition’s splash last Sunday, shall we? (above and below).

And before we have our spray, here’s one meaning of boilover our good friend AI got for us…

We suspect whoever wrote that heading doesn’t know much about politics or polling. Well before last Saturday’s Farrer outcome, the polls had the One Nation candidate more or less equal with the popular repeat Independent. Just a week ago, One Nation on those figures was going to win simply because the National and Liberal Parties were preferencing its candidate David Farley. And seeing he ended up with a primary vote above 40 per cent, he’s now on a very healthy margin. It’s all basic politics maths really. And an understanding of compulsory preferential voting.

Not far inside the paper, James Massola in his Farrer outcome analysis reminded us that One Nation had won “a swag of seats” at the recent South Australia state poll.

With this definition of swag in mind…

Oh, a large number or many seats! One Nation won four seats in SA a few weeks ago. Now it’s true that Aunty Pauline and her white indigenous One Nation mob have a certain swagger going after that result and their win in Farrer, their result in SA was not a swag of seats.

Also not far inside the same edition Pete Hegseth was described as the US secretary of defence. He’s been the War Secretary in charge of the Department of War for quite some time. The Heralds are far from alone in doing this but if Seth Pisshead wants to be known as the Secretary of War, why not let him?

***

Our compilers have two issues with this next story about the Queensland Government’s level of financial support for the future of the NRL magic round in Brisbane this weekend; why the secrecy and why does our national broadcaster often forget what day of the week they are confusing their audiences over.

Firstly, the LNP government’s silence on how much the “deal” had costs Queensland taxpayers. No doubt it will be claimed to be “commercial in confidence”, so taxpayers may never know just how much of their hard-earned will help prop up the event.

Just how the disclosure of details of a deal with the sole national body representing rugby league could give the NRL’s non-existent competitors a commercial advantage is unclear. But that’s a separate PPP.

What also worried our researchers is this line in the online story….

The story was filed and uploaded yesterday so the “tomorrow” it cites is actually today.

Our teams say the national broadcaster often makes this type of error which has the potential to confuse readers, some of whom may well turn up tomorrow at the Magic Round to find a full day of its has magically disappeared already.

Surely replacing “tomorrow” with “Thursday” is not a big ask.

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