Goff’s gaffe – where’s the story

If blinked you missed it. On Tuesday morning it was Goff’s gaffe and the news media was all over it in a flash. By the weekend it had all but vanished. Had Phil Goff signaled a hidden streak of disloyalty? Was the minister really suggesting that Labour might lose this year’s election? Did he want Helen’s job and was he preparing for a Christmas coup? Or was the whole thing a beat-up? Which ever way you cut it this won’t be the last such scoop/frenzy/speculation drama of 2008.

In defence of theory – a reply to Mr duFresne’s review of Intro

It seems that Dominion Post columnist Karl duFresne and I are destined to cross keyboards for some time to come. We first clashed in August-September 2007 in a debate about the state of journalism in New Zealand and the old chestnut of objectivity in journalism.

Now I find I have to challenge him once again. This time over a fairly damning review of the journalism textbook Intro.

I have no real interest in defending every word and full-stop in the book, but a couple of inaccuracies and the general tone of the review do need some comment. my particular beef with Karl is the disdainful voice he adopts when talking about “theory”.