There’s nothing so compelling as watching things go wrong. This is especially true in a world as serious and self-important as broadcast news. It’s the moment where we peel back the facade, the limelight fades and suddenly the slick and confident hosts become as scared and human as the rest of us.

The Australian news blooper is a unique beast in itself. Internationally, bloopers are mostly slips of the tongue or unintentionally funny graphics. A small slip in a ruthlessly professional operation. An Australian blooper, on the other hand, is closer to the kind of fiasco you’d usually associate with a school theatre production where the backdrops crash to the ground and Peter Pan is left dangling helplessly forever. Indeed, sometimes this is much more literal than you’d think.

It’s important to define what counts as a blooper. Former opposition leader Tony Abbott’s central processing unit melting during a live interview, leaving him gawping like a goldfish, was unbelievably weird but it’s not a blooper.

Equally, morning sewerage delivery service Sunrise’s baffling choice to force a clearly uncomfortable Kristin Davis into playing out their Sex and the City fan fiction and the acid trip that was the Reject the Recession dancers had, remarkably, been planned. Granted, those plans were made by people who work in the world of breakfast television which is as damaging to the mind as taking an anvil to the skull – but nevertheless, they aren’t bloopers.

As for what does count as a blooper? To steal a quote from former supreme court justice Potter Stewart talking about pornography: “I know it when I see it.” And these are the ones that you simple can’t unsee.

Category: distressingly human bloopers

The best bloopers are the ones that show consummate professional newsreaders as almost human.

Whether they’re caught out not paying attention:

Locked in a petty argument:

Being casually destroyed in the usually bland banter:

Or even revealing a powerful thirst when they didn’t realise the camera is rolling:

Category winner

The most painfully human moment of all. This disaster.

Category: torturing the weather guy bloopers

A great tradition of breakfast television is attempting to liven up literally talking about the weather by putting the presenter in mortal peril.

Sunrise had a young Grant Denyer pass out in a stunt plane:

The Today Show’s Stevie Jacobs was bitten on the butt by a pelican:

Why do this? Simply put, when left to their own devices, presenters will break a child’s toy in front of them. They can’t be trusted:

Category winner:

The perfect scream emitted by Stevie Jacobs when he was attacked by a different bird.

Category: specifically bird-related bloopers

For years now, Australian news has been openly at war with all birds. It’s common enough that it is deserving of its own category.

Birds have harassed reporters trying to present live crosses:

And revealed that Channel Nine legend Peter Hitchener is actually the size of a potato chip:

But the reporters are far from innocent, particularly when they hook and reel in a duck on live television:

Category winner:

Come on. It’s Stevie Jacobs being scared by the chicken again. You cannot see it enough.

Category: tabloid journalism getting what it deserves

In a world of neighbours from hell, dodgy plumbers and men who bark like dogs, it’s hard to know what actually counts as a blooper on tabloid news:

But if I had to guess, I’d say mistakenly announcing the Queen stepping down in 2017 would count:

Also, having the cameras themselves turn against you would, too:

Category winner:

Let’s not overthink this. Last month a A Current Affair reporter was sprayed in the crotch with a hose. Immature? Yes. Indisputably funny? Also yes.

Perhaps it’s cruel to laugh at these small moments. The high stakes of live broadcast television make the slightest mistake seem like a pie to the face. Would we all be better people if we didn’t delight in schadenfreude? Probably. But too bad. Now, if you don’t mind, I am going to watch Stevie Jacobs be attacked by a rooster three more times.