ABC’s ‘physical proximity’ to waffle

The ABC pleads for more money. (Don’t we all?)

But you’d think that its news departments, editors, and journalists would be well-enough funded to avoid the kind of fourth-rate writing in last night’s Victorian TV news.

There was Tamara Oudyn reading the bulletin. I wasn’t concentrating well enough to take in the subject matter, but I did clearly hear her say that something or someone was ‘in physical proximity’ to someone or something else.  (The item was probably to do with COVID-19. Isn’t every news story coronavirally inclined these days?)

I spluttered. Choked. Was the bulletin so short of stories that the corporation needed to pad it out with ‘in physical proximity’ instead of ‘near’?

My goodness. What a bad example the ABC sets. Its online news is waffly, stories way too long, their main messages buried beneath paragraphs of irrelevant, and often personal, verbiage.

‘In physical proximity’ has eight syllables. ‘Near’ has one. It lightens the listener’s load.