Just to kick off some kind of on WCF today, we'll direct our readers attention to this morning's Salt Lake Tribune story, the latest from reporter Chris Smart, who recently replaced Kristen Moulton as the Trib's "Ogden Beat" reporter. If you're a fan of "he said/she said journalism", a modern psuedo-objective journalistic form of reporting, whereby reporters spill out a few conflicting quotes, report them as if they all carried equal weight and make no attempt to try to separate out who’s right from those who are wrong... you're going to just love this story:
• Love Mayor Godfrey or hate him, he gets credit for energizing OgdenWe won't however be overly critical of Mr. Smart at this point. He's new on the Ogden scene, and obviously has plenty to learn. Moreover he probably had a tight deadline to beat. Nothing like a he said/she said puff piece to at least introduce the illusion of "fairness" and "balance" to the reporting of a heated and complicated debate... and still allow a reporter to make it home in time for dinner. And if a reporter like Mr. Smart leaves his readers helpless in sorting out which of his "sources" are faking it more... so what?
And while we're on the subject of he said/she said journalism, we're delighted to engage in another WCF-patented neck-snapping segue, and to shine the spotlight on a truly deep and profound article on the subject, which we googled up earlier this week. For a truly robust critique of this surprisingly popular reportorial style, with enough footnotes, links and references to choke even an old school journalist, you're definitely not going to want to miss this one:
• He Said, She Said Journalism: Lame Formula in the Land of the Active UserWe hope our readers will devote the time to plow through the latter article and offer their own comments and impressions on this topic.
In closing, we also present this highly instructive graphic image, gleaned from the pages of the most excellent mikhaela.net.
Don't let the cat get your tongues.
