Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Speaking proper

Paul Bongiorno, of whom I am in general terms a fan, has just said (1) 'watched on' when he meant either 'watched' or 'looked on', (2) 'comprises of' when he meant either 'comprises' or 'is comprised of', and (3) 'Cambra' for 'Canberra' -- all in the space of a single report, the lead story on Ten's TV news.

As far as (1) and (2) are concerned he may merely have been reading out what someone else wrote. (Still not good enough; he should have corrected it on the fly -- and it shouldn't have been written in the first place). But the ubiquitous 'Cambra' must have been all his own work.

Some will say it serves me right for watching Ten in the first place instead of waiting for SBS and the ABC, but I like to know the news about what the media think the news is. I don't know why, I'm sure: it only makes me sad.

Besides, the ABC is in my personal doghouse at the moment in the wake of a rude, hostile and bullying interview with Tanya Plibersek conducted this morning by Adelaide ABC Radio's Matthew Abraham, who appears to believe that a woman's place is barefoot and pregnant.

1 comment:

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Well, there you go. Barefoot and pregnant, like I said.

Along similar lines, you should have heard the way he spoke a few months ago to Philip Nitschke. (The latter coped much better, as you might expect, than Plibersek, who was rattled by the hostility and astonished by the rudeness.) I guess Abraham thinks it's okay to use your publicly funded public platform to fight the good fight.

There's also a bit of frog and puddle stuff happening there, I think.