We’re all used to the modern media practice of cutting and pasting media releases or wire stories, punching out a silly headline and calling it journalism. We’ve even become accustomed to Google-journalism where lazy hacks report the number of hits a keyword receives on the leading search engine as if that worthless statistic has anything to do with anything. But a form of journalism that’s only in its infancy but already horribly frustrating is Google Trends-journalism.

The Age loves this new Google toy and its ever-shrinking team of work experience cadets journalists have embraced it without question. A few weeks ago there was a non-story in that paper about Melbourne being the fifth (or something) most depressed city in the world. Was this reporting based on a scientific report? A journal article? Another newspaper? No, it was based on a search of Google Trends. And now, high on the rush of pride following that Walkley award winning bit of journalism, The Age proudly reports that New Zealanders Google for “sheep” more than any other country.

Sometimes The Editor thinks that the newsagent accidentally throws MX onto his porch each morning.