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.

The rum-soaked, washed-up, bitter old hacks who compile this column think this might be the first time they’ve had fun with news bulletins that give inanimate objects the power of human thought and subsequent action.

Take, for example, what it means to avoid something. We checked a few dictionary definitions, like this one…

.. and they all seem to indicate a human thought-process was involved whenever anyone avoids something. Take, for example, how many of you BUGgers out there would have consciously acted/tried to or refrained from watching this week’s ABC National Forum highlighting One Nation’s common-sense approach to cutting migration numbers, simply because you wanted to AVOID watching the Beetrooter bamBOOZEle his fellow panellists. Or how you reach for the remote if you hear Richard Marles is about to be interviewed on News Breakfast. Who wouldn’t want to avoid that doofus.

And with that fair and balanced approach to politics over, we come to a recent Nine News Queensland 6pm bulletin when newsreader Melissa Downes led into a segment with “…a ute has smashed into a fence, narrowly avoiding a swimming pool..”

Our compilers accept that if the words “out of control” had also been used, that would have strengthened their case that this mechanical device had no say whatsover, decision-making wise, in smashing up a fence and then avoiding the pool. It is their firm guess, however, that this ute was most definitely out of control; otherwise it wouldn’t have gone through the fence in the first place!

Our compilers make this simple plea to news editors everywhere; please avoid the use of avoid and its present participle. The ute narrowly missed the swimming pool is a better option. Well, a little bit better, anyway.

Ideas, anyone? Yes, you up the back! ….”… a ute has smashed through a fence, ending up close to a swimming pool..” Not bad; not bad at all. We’d recommend you for a cadetship if such things were still offered in Australian journalism.

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