He Said She Said Journalism Dissected

I have discussed the He Said She Said journalism before, e.g.,

http://tinyurl.com/d9zthf
http://tinyurl.com/d8zyct
http://tinyurl.com/6cubxk
http://tinyurl.com/bd89qf

and my first critique was in 2005: http://tinyurl.com/damr5o

Interesting discussion here

The physicist Jacques Distler blogged thusly in 2002:

The much-anticipated New York Times article on the Bogdanov scandal has appeared. Alas, it suffers from the usual journalistic conceit that a proper newspaper article must cover a âcontroversyâ. There must be two sides to the controversy, and the reporterâs job is to elicit quotes from both parties and present them side-by-side. Almost inevitably, this âbalancedâ approach sheds no light on the matter, and leaves the reader shaking his head, âThere they go againâ¦â