Hester loves it when she catches another hack with his or her pants down. She takes great joy in it actually, because competing news outlets take great pride in getting The Royal Gazette in their sights. But an incident this week takes the cake and has left the newsroom shaking their heads in knowing recognition.

You see, dear reader, Hester's colleagues find it a source of amusement to hear stories they have worked on for hours or even days, being read over the airwaves without any revision. It can be quite a blow to a reporter to have massaged sources, crafted words and cajoled editors to run a story, then wake up the next morning and hear one's fine work being reproduced verbatim over the airwaves by some honey-voiced prima-donna.

To a degree it happens with all stories, modern media does tend to be a rehashing of the same old thing. But at least when CNN or the Daily Telegraph use someone else's story they give credit.

So imagine the shock of that eager young reporter who toiled through the night to work the story of this week's shooting. (Word around the newsroom was that The Daily's pressmen - all of them burly, just how Hester likes them - had to wait patiently until after 2 a.m. to fire up `Ol Rattle and Shake.)

Our intrepid Clarke Kent turned on VSB the following morning to hear her story being repeated - word for word. And repeated again at 12.15 p.m. That's fine, with years of experience, she's used to that now.

But when the Dean of Bermuda's Journalists, Brian Darby, at a press briefing later that day, asked the Commish "Was there anything incorrect in the report that appeared in The Royal Gazette this morning?" the Gazette team reportedly burst out laughing.

Hester hears that the knowing smiles around the room from policemen was priceless. Even better was Big Darb's reason for his question - to check the report's accuracy so that it could be read out on VSB's 7 p.m. newscast.

Not to kick The Dean of Bermuda's Journalists while he is down, need we remind everyone of VSB's breaking report on Tuesday of a Police bomb squad in a tactical operation "as we speak" followed by the admission that they don't know if the report "is accurate or not".

But wait - as Hester knows from experience - the cheque book journalists had to admit by broadcast's end they had stumbled on a scheduled-in-advance Police exercise, not a follow-up to the Warwick shooting or an al Qaeda attack. Red faces all around.

And still with the electronic media...Hester was a bit bamboozled when she heard a news report on the ZBM airwaves yesterday lunchtime referring to a certain manager of that company making a court appearance earlier in the morning.

The reason for Hester's bewilderment? Well, being a media-savvy puss, your correspondent likes to think she knows every colourful personality in the news business. Yet the name of the man in court being charged with drink/driving - Arthur James McKay as he was called in the bulletin - certainly didn't ring any bells.

Some time later it dawned that the identity of the character at the centre of ZBM's court report was none other than the Island's favourite ruddy faced, gravel voiced newsreader Jim McKey. Hester recalled the ZBM frontman having a prang with a couple of other vehicles while attempting to drive home last Christmas.

Was the broadcast's misleading mispronunciation an attempt to disguise the true identity of its own employee and save the blushes of both Jim and the company board? Surely not.