zerosleeps

It appears that ABC News has completed it’s transition to utter shit. Our main sources of news in Australia have always been crap (“always” being “at least since I moved here in 2010”), but the ABC was the best of a bad bunch.

As I type, the top story on abc.net.au is:

One golf club benefitted from a multi-million-dollar Labor grants scheme. It was in the PM’s electorate

It’s in a big blue box and it has a photo of a golf club and a sub-heading that contains the phrase “pork-barrelled”:

That is, according to the ABC, the thing on the planet that we need to know about the very most.

This post was actually triggered by the ABC’s report on yesterday’s 21 Air flight that overran the runway at Miami Airport. The opening paragraph in the ABC’s article:

At least five people are dead after an Amazon cargo plane barrelled off a runway at Miami International Airport, striking multiple vehicles and bursting into flames.

Look at the language. “barrelled”, “striking”, and “bursting into flames”. And “at least” five people are dead - surely there will be more! This is a huge disaster!

Compare with the opener from BBC News’s story:

An Amazon Air cargo plane overshot the runway while attempting to land at Miami International Airport, killing five people and seriously injuring five more.

No theatre. No spectacle. Just the facts.