He-said-she-said journalism means…

  • There’s a public dispute.
  • The dispute makes news.
  • No real attempt is made to assess clashing truth claims in the story, even though they are in some sense the reason for the story. (Under the “conflict makes news” test.)
  • The means for assessment do exist, so it’s possible to exert a factual check on some of the claims, but for whatever reason the report declines to make use of them.
  • The symmetry of two sides making opposite claims puts the reporter in the middle between polarised extremes.

— Margaret Simons, “Innovation in Journalism: the politics death roll“, yesterday, Crikey

Cate Blanchett has sparked outrage in the community with her decision to front an ad campaign promoting the federal government’s controversial carbon tax.

— The Sunday Telegraph, May 29

One indication of #adfailure? When there’s more conversation about the tactics and execution of it rather than about its core subject matter.

— tweet from Mark Textor, political strategist and former pollster to PM John Howard, yesterday

The fact is that no one can really judge whether the ads are any good until research is done on community reactions. Until then it is just a matter of opinion.

— Noel Turnbull, “Come in Spinner: not even wrong“, Crikey, yesterday

Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency.

The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius — which scientists say is the threshold for potentially “dangerous climate change” — is likely to be just “a nice Utopia”, according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA.

— The Guardian, yesterday

Loving Carbon Cate — nice case study on how media (and these days individuals) shape angles around their audiences — just as any producer wd

— tweet from David Higgins, innovations ed of News Ltd, yesterday

Q. Do you agree that there is fairly conclusive evidence that climate change is happening and caused by human activity or do you believe that the evidence is still not in and we may just be witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate which happens from time to time?

Total Labor Liberal
Climate change is happening and is caused by human activity 52% 71% 34%
We are just witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s
climate		 36% 20% 54%
Don’t know 12% 8% 12%

— Essential Media, yesterday

Someone’s losing out here.