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.
Any of you BUGgers out there ever wondered what an Australian army platoon would look like if it was made up almost entirely of Derryn Hinches who has sadly just left the parade ground?
No. Neither had we until today but we asked one of our graphic artists to give it a go. His original response was: “Fuck off! That would take me forever with the shit graphics program you pricks make me use!” Nevertheless, we pleaded with him to give it a try and as you can see from above, his heart wasn’t in it the moment he cranked up his 1988 version of Corel Draw 4.
Anyway, let’s put an end to your wonderment. We thought we’d do this after National Nine News reporter Tony Jones in its main 6pm bulletin last night (Friday) described the much-married Derryn Hinch as having “a near platoon” of wives. And just to make sure we all knew Jones knew fuck-all about platoons and clearly only ever played with a toy rifle, he added immediately: “Four no less!”
One of our senior compilers called “bullshit” the moment he heard that claim as he and his colleagues stood around the drinks fridge last night. “An army platoon is around 32, sometimes a few more with ancillary numbers. There are three sections of 10 troops, a lieutenant and a platoon sergeant at least.”
His colleagues accept the truth of this, and not only because he often told them “to smoke if you have them”. He had indeed spent some years in the old Citizens Military Forces where he learnt how to single-handedly and unarmed snap a gook’s neck even if he wasn’t in the same paddy field at the time. Still, we at least can now understand that if Hinch had, say 28 or 29 or so, so, wives, no wonder he was a grumpy, much-used prick.
Tony Jones’s overblown and absurd hyperbole came in very fast time after our last MB column just the other day got stuck into Nine News Queensland for its hyperbolic (subs, please check if that’s a word) antics. (link below)
And to think Jones is supposedly one of the network’s very best journos, which is why we won’t damage his reputation further by mentioning some other pretty damned silly words uttered earlier in his report, namely that Hinch had been sacked “more times than humanly possible”. Shit, we just did.
Editor’s note: Over a long journey, our media columns have often softened the blow when getting stuck into some tyro’s errors that we have faith they’ll turn out okay because, with time, a bell will ring in their brains whenever they scribble notes or mentally run through their spiels for broadcast or publication that are just plain silly. What the fuck was Tony Jones’s excuse?
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