The good and the bad

In And now for some good news the News with Nipples blog has an interesting post looking at a couple of cases of good and bad journalism. They aren't kind on Ben Cubby:

Contrast Hasham’s story with the story placed above it on page three, from Environment Editor Ben Cubby, who’s been pulled up here before for lazy journalism: Cause for optimism on global warming.
It’s 475 words about a report that he doesn’t name so readers can’t easily find it and therefore have to take his word for it that he’s reporting it accurately (I assume it’s The Critical Decade: International Action on Climate Change), with a quote from Opposition climate spokesman Greg Hunt that ranges from clearly wrong (South Korea) to somewhat wrong (the US and Canada) but is left unchecked by Cubby. Like all politicians, Hunt knows that he can pretty much just make shit up and journalists will report it without pointing out that there’s no evidence to support the claims. There’s a general quote from Minister for Climate Change Greg Combet and a general quote from Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery that sound like they’re from the media release that arrived with the report. I’m happy to be wrong about that. If a journalism student submitted this story for an assignment, they’d be lucky to pass.

But back to the good bit. Nice work, Nicole Hasham.