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.

One of The Bug‘s quirkier media awards is the trophy for the most-repeated video of an incident to prove just how hard it is to fill out a 60-minute news bulletin, especially on the weekends when fuck all happens.

Can you now see why we can’t yet show you the uncoveted trophy – one of our new annual ones – as it’s still being designed. There’s a lot to put on the front of it, isn’t there? And cost is a major consideration.

That’s not the major news though: it’s that Nine News Queensland has added a very worthy addition to our prize barrel with a report on its 6pm bulletin last night (Thursday) about the arrest of a driver in a dead-end street in inner-Brisbane’s Petrie Terrace.

Accompanying Ha-Teya Gripske’s excellent report were not one, not two as shown above, but SEVEN videos of the driver being flung to the roadside.

Not a bad effort for a working week night, is it? How many times would it have been shown on a Saturday or Sunday night bulletin if some real news hadn’t broken then; for example if Prince Harry had not only farted after a really big meal but had followed through. Nine’s non-royals reporter could have banged on about that for a very long time.

We can only imagine how many times it would have needed to be shown if the police had banged the bloke’s head into the concrete kerb as they’re trained to do.

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The compilers of this column and its more serious sibling Media Glass House often regret not having a pen handy when they hear electronic mediocre news that tickles their fannies. Especially when they are driving with their right hand exactly at two o’clock and their left hand holding a Bundy rum bottle.

So they hope they got this one right; a news break on Brisbane’s ABC 4QR told of a wanted vehicle being found up north, a, “on fire and extinguished”.

Ooooh. Could MB humbly suggest it was one or the other.

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And how’s this for one way beyond the usual call of duty. The lovely neighbours of one of our compilers have been away, also up north, a, for a few weeks and he has been collecting their daily home-delivered copies of The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Mail and giving them both a squiz.

He had his IQ tested before this began – and was dismayed by the low rating – and will have it reappraised on Monday. You BUGgers will have to wait to then to read the results but he is obviously hoping any further drop will not make him, as a indigenous white Australian, automatically entitled to membersip of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

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