Friday's Weakly Award

This weeks inaugural Weakley* award for shoddy hyperbolic journalism goes out to Darren Goodsir at the Sydney Morning Herald, for his brilliant "expose" on Chubbs' run-in with the ACCC in the Federal Court over charges it took on security patrol work it had reason to know it couldn't perform. Yes, Chubb were guilty - they admitted as such - and probably deserved the dressing down they got, along with whatever fines the court decides to impose. So, if it's all true, why has Goodsir picked up the Weakley? For his little claim in the opening paragraph that up to 11,000 jobs were at risk. Turns out this is the entire staff of Chubb Australasia - not just the security division, which employees less than 20% of the company's total employees in Australia. If Chubb do lose their security licence in Australia, it is unlikely to impact on the companies other divisions (such as Fire, Cash etc), let alone their New Zealand operations.

Don't get me wrong here - I'm in no way defending the actions of Chubb or its franchisees, but please Darren, how about putting a little bit of effort into fact-checking your stories. I'm sure it sounded like a good headline at the time, but you're making the Herald look sloppy.

*it's the stilt's highly valued award for lazy journalism. Know a candidate? Send them in!