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.
“More fruit for the sideboard!” is the old-fashioned saying one of our older yet equally bitter and twisted and washed-up hacks who compile this column shouted after he and his colleagues took in last night’s (Thursday’s) 6pm edition of Nine News Queensland.
He was referring to a few silly little errors on issues that have always attracted our team’s attention; the overuse, underuse and misuse of alleged and allegedly and the apostrophe that frequently refuses to know it’s place. Sorry! ITS place!
MB now accepts that some staff members at the news studio act sometimes can act professionally – we have always hoped there would be at least one – because newsreader Joel Dry used the word “allegedly” right three times at least in introducing yarns about Sam Wood facing a domestic violence charge, and a bit later, introducing a story that two more men had been added to a number charged with murder.
But Annie Pullar let herself down in her Sam Wood report, telling viewers that the alleged (like that?) women’s health and fitness guru and former reality TV “star” had been denied bail …”after being charged with allegedly assaulting and strangling his wife…”
Annie, he has been charged with assaulting and strangling his wife. There’s no need for “allegedly”.
We move onto the next item that Dry got spot on with good use of the A words, but where the newsroom’s artist or strap creator put this out into the airwaves…
2 MORE CHARGED WITH BAHRS SCRUB MURDER is what viewers should have read. Picky, picky? MB doesn’t think so. The use of OVER clearly implies that a murder has indeed been committed. Our washed-up, bitter and twisted, compilers are old enough to remember when courts determined whether a murder has taken place and if anyone should be punished over it. Silly old fossils, aren’t they? Dinosaurs sticking to outdated basic rules of how the craft of journalism should be conducted!
Let’s finish with one of the sports stories, with another dig at whoever creates the straps at the bottom of the screen.
One of our compiler’s … sorry, compilers … shouted: “Do you know how many such awards I could have won in my cricket playing days if I alone could have made that decision?”
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