Headlines that made you cringe

I don't know if there's a topic on this kind of thing, but I thought I'd kick one off.

I heard the bloke (Martin something or another) on Sky News just now at the top of the hour talking about "Gary Glitter losing his appeal of molesting young girls".

The whole top of the hour started after then started to fall apart slightly as there was wrong footage shown and a bit of ad-libbing with pauses. I have to say, they could have been a bit more tactful with the choice of words!

So, has anyone else heard any more examples of not so sensitive scriptwriting?

Over to you, folks.

Some classic examples on 'Making the News'

Stuff like 'a rock and a hard place' for the MI5 spyrock.

Also - newspaper headlines, e.g. "Can it be Roo?"

My particular fave.... "Suicide bomber strikes again in Israel."

Headlines which make me cringe most are those lazy ones based on over-used cliches.

"A devastating blow..."
"Tributes are being paid..."
"...swings into action."
etc.

...and of course any scandal with the suffix 'gate'.

Thanks for the namecheck. We've collated a number of the cheesiest - just go to Making The News and type 'checklist' into the search box.

And I should add, my least favourite thing on TV news is hearing 'Hello and welcome to BBC London News. I'm Mike Ramsden'

ITV had a terrible one the other day: "...as Princess Margaret's baubles go under the hammer..."

Conjures up a rather messy image of lots of shards of glass.

The overuse of (quote) then ''the words of a mother from Eastbourne'' etc etc. ITV News Network across the board seem to use this a lot.

There's actually a Sky News cliche list, presumably compiled with the intent of avoiding any of its content getting on air. Shame it doesn't do its job, though.

When they're talking about football and they say "lets kick off...".

Perhaps it's more of a 'suggestions list'.

"Obesity is a big problem" - heard that a few times on Breakfast.

I personally cringe at the phrase, at the top of some reports,

"The BBC(/ITV News/Channel 4 News) has learned today, that..."

Rather makes them sound as though they were briefed by a schoolteacher. How is a story prefaced by this phrase one that has been brought to the newsroom via a vastly different route to that of any other story?

...or, "James Mates was there". Does he carve this on the nearest concrete seating facility when he finishes a piece to camera?

I can just foresee now that after the studio presentation switches to HD (in however many years' time that may be) many reports will be preceded with the phrase, "...the following report was not shot in HD, so some viewers may find the pictures - (pause) - disturbing"