By Stephen Mayne, media pedant

Media Watch might have
moved on from the Stuart Littlemore days of pointing out petty little
errors, but from time to time Crikey has taken on that role. And as our
error-count has fallen dramatically since Crikey turned professional in
March, we’re not too hypocritical in pointing the finger. Here are four
recent favourites:

  • ABC radio’s flagship PM program twice
    described Kerry Stokes as Seven’s “majority shareholder” during the big
    C7 court case. He’s not, 43% is not a majority of anything. He’s the
    largest, controlling and dominant shareholder, but not the majority.
  • Victorian Liberal David Davis produced a nice obituary for former Legislative Council President Bruce Chamberlain in The Age on Saturday, but surely he knew his former boss is Jeff Kennett, not “Geoff Kennett.”
  • Sky Business Report last night told us that independent
    expert “Graeme Samuel” had done a report on the Mayne Group break-up.
    Er, try Grant Samuel, in which the ACCC chairman used to have a stake.
  • John Durie today told us in The AFR’s Chanticleer
    column today that Rupert Murdoch “owns just 28 per cent of the $66
    billion company.” Not quite. He owns 28% of the votes, but only about
    11% of the actual shares in the company. You can’t forget Rupert’s Sir
    Joh-like gerrymander which sees almost 70% of the issued stock without
    a vote.

That said, I’ve published more errors than all of the journalists responsible for the above combined.