I used to want to be a journalist. As a precocious young reader I admired writers above all else. When I was 11 I sent away to Yale University's Journalism School for their scholarship package because that was my dream.

Something terrible has happend to this noble profession in these past 30 years since that dream was so meaningful to me. I can barely watch a news bulletin or read a newspaper article these days. My blood boils and an awful desire to throw a brick through the tv and/or shove the newspaper into the specific editor's back passage overwhelms me.

Not only is the grammar and punctuation horrible, the use of apostrophes beyond belief, but the sensationalism used in each and every article and news story is truly pathetic and degrading.

I could write a daily post on the subject. I won't. But here is an example from the weekend. I was watching one of the many news updates about the Victorian fires on Saturday when the reporter said: "We were expecting the worst day in bushfire history but it was even worse than that."

I'll leave you to ponder that particular combination of words.