Thursday, May 30, 2013

Oh Deery

Is the Herald Sun's Shannon Deery a work experience kid with no editorial supervision or a non-native English speaker on drugs (with no editorial supervision)?

FRIENDS of a man who strangled his wife before burying her in their backyard unknowingly helped him build a new deck to cover the body, a court has heard.
'Unknowingly helped him build a new deck'?

In the days following his wife disappeared....
'In the days following his wife disappeared's disappearance'.

Instead she had lay buried in the backyard...
'Instead she had lay lain buried in the backyard' or 'Instead she had lay buried in the backyard'.

...covered her body with concrete and then built a new decking on top of the site.
'...covered her body with concrete and then built a new decking on top of the site'.

He said friends of Ahmadi unknowingly helped him carry materials to the area.
Unknowingly helped him carry materials?

Do newspapers have sub-editors anymore?

-- Nick

Thursday, May 09, 2013

No Comments Please, We're Gay

Australia's Courier Mail has not opened comments for this story:

A TOOWOOMBA doctor who has compared gay surrogacy to the Stolen Generations and claims "a gay person can stop being gay" has survived the LNP's vetting process and will stand as a candidate for Barnaby Joyce's Senate spot... Dr van Gend - who was vetted by the party's "applicant review committee" over the weekend - could prove to be the more controversial candidate. In June 2011, he wrote a column for The Courier-Mail comparing the Stolen Generations with what he called the "'gay stolen generation' of children forcibly deprived of a mother".
One wonders why?

Perhaps they don't want it pointing put that authorities are indeed exposing themselves and the public purse to abuse and 'stolen generation' style legal action by placing children with homosexuals:

A boy sexually abused by his adoptive father and his gay partner was labelled an ‘unruly child’ by social workers who ignored his complaints for years, a damning report has revealed. They sent Andy Cannon, now 23, back to the couple’s home despite his protests of abuse, praising the gay man who adopted him as a ‘very caring parent’.

The report accuses Wakefield social services, in Yorkshire, of ‘folly and gross misjudgment’. Mr Cannon, who was wrongly diagnosed with mental disorders and prescribed anti-psychotic drugs, believes he would have been listened to sooner if his adoptive father wasn’t gay. The case ended last year, after half a decade of legal wrangling, when a court ordered a £25,000 compensation payment to Mr Cannon.
And perhaps they also don't want readers asking the obvious question - if a heterosexual can stop being 'straight', why is it forbidden to suggest a homosexual can stop being 'gay'?

-- Nick

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Can You Spot The Pattern?

Honestly, how dim have you got to be?

AUSTRALIA faces at least a decade of debt until the billions in borrowings under Labor can be wiped from the Budget books, according to economists.

Treasurer Wayne Swan declined to comment yesterday on when he thought the current $144 billion net debt level could be repaid...

The Howard government took 10 years to pay down the $96 billion net debt inherited from Labor in 1996.

-- Nick

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Excited Journalist Reads Minds

Daily Telegraph journalist Phil Rothfield admits the Waterhouse-Singleton betting scandal story has got him all excited, injecting himself into the tale thus:

IT'S the biggest sporting stoush this writer has seen since the Super League war in the mid-90s.
Perhaps he needs to calm down a little.

Getting over-excited can lead to writing like this, a few paragraphs earlier:

(Channel 9 commentator Andrew Johns) said he didn't recall speaking to anyone but Singleton about More Joyous on the Saturday of the race.

His phone records showed otherwise. He'd in fact been in phone conversations with Hayson, former jockey Allan Robinson and Newcastle trainer Kris Lees.
And writing like that can get you sued.

Johns' phone records - unless all phone calls are being recorded by 'the authorities' now - show nothing 'otherwise' of the sort. That he shared phone calls with people does not indicate what they were talking about.

Legally, the journalist and his employer are teetering on the edge.

-- Nick