Source: http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/05/22/misreporting-the-victorian-bushfire...
Several newspapers on Friday 22 May reported Dr. Kevin Tolhurst’s testimony to the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission.
Two such reports, in the Australian and the Herald Sun, report Dr. Tolhurst’s testimony in a way which suggest that fuel loadings were a principal, if not the principal, factor in the intensity of the Black Saturday fires.
It was my view at the time I originally posted on this topic, and it remains my view, that such reports provide an incorrect impression of the gravamen of Dr. Tolhurst’s testimony, and of Dr. Tolhurst’s general position in relation to the kind of extreme fires seen on Black Saturday, which is that the extreme climatic and weather conditions endured up to and on Black Saturday probably played a more significant role than fuel loads.
Whilst reporting of an information-dense testimony on scientifically complex issues to a lay audience is not simple, it can be argued in relation to the Black Saturday bushfires that journalists face a particularly important task in fully grasping and interpreting the essence of such testimony, not least in order to move public discussion of these issues beyond the misinformed and frequently malicious claims – about the role of unburned ground litter, the lack of prescribed burning to eliminate ground litter, and the reasons for the lack of prescribed burning – which have bedevilled public commentary about bushfires in Australia over the past 15 years.