☕️ Why TDA must use the word 'allegedly'

It was Dakota Johnson's birthday yesterday, and someone needs to ask her if she invited Ellen DeGeneres to her party again.

The quote: “It happened in seconds, but when you stand there, seeing the car coming at you, I honestly thought I was going to die. It just felt like slow motion.”
Newcastle resident Chris Clancy, who was one of at least 10 victims in Saturday morning’s major vehicle incident as supporters farewelled their NRL team ahead of last night’s Grand Final in Sydney. Clancy suffered fractures in his ribs, spine and foot, and a broken collarbone, after a BMW lost control and veered into crowds. The 18-year-old driver has been charged with nine offences and was formally refused bail. Two patients, including a five-year-old girl, remain in serious but stable condition.

The stat: 48.2%. The national clearance rate around Australia this weekend, down 19.2% from this weekend last year. The clearance rate is the percentage of scheduled real estate auctions across Australia’s capital cities that result in a sale.

The big question:

Friday’s results: 29% of you believe in the death penalty, 60% of you don’t, and 11% of you don’t know. Thanks for voting - your responses inform TDA's journalism and research. [2,628 votes].

Together with AAP.

A cancer diagnosis is deeply personal – but treatment plans target "the average patient," meaning some spend months on treatments that were never going to work for them.

Brisbane biotech Gelomics grows personalised tumours in the lab and trains Google AI on how they respond, so in the future, doctors can test what will work at an individual patient level. We asked CEO Dr Christoph Meinert how

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Daylight saving time started on Sunday, giving residents in large parts of the country one less hour of sleep.

The clocks rolled forward in NSW, Victoria, the ACT, South Australia, and Tasmania early on Sunday morning, changing the time of sunrise and sunset ahead of summer.

So, why is daylight saving time a thing?

Daylight saving was first popularised in European countries during World War I as a way to conserve fuel.

With more light at the end of the day, people could commute home and cook dinner by daylight instead of using gas or electric lights to see what they were doing.

Australia followed Europe’s lead, using daylight saving in war and dropping it in peacetime.

In the late 1960s Tasmania brought it back during a drought that left water supplies for hydro-electric energy dangerously low.

Other parts of the country followed Tasmania, but not Australia’s three largest jurisdictions (by land size) – Qld, the NT, and WA.

Their populations are spread across coastal cities and far-flung rural communities, which are affected differently by daylight saving.

WA has held four failed referendums on daylight saving over the years.

In the latest referendum, the ‘no’ vote was strongest in regional and rural areas — 86% of voters in the Central Wheatbelt voted against it.

Queensland is especially split because of its different climates.

When the state debated daylight saving in the 1980s, one MP said: “If one lived in Cairns in summer-time, the two things that one would not want would be more sunshine and more daylight.”

Communities close to the NSW border, however, are more pro-daylight saving, as the hour difference during summer makes travelling between the states for work and leisure difficult.

For more on the debate around daylight saving, listen to today’s podcast.

Reporting by Lucy Tassell.

🎧 On today’s TDA podcast, we talk about the debate around daylight saving. Listen or watch on Apple here, Spotify here, or YouTube here.

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We’ve seen your DMs and comments about the word ‘allegedly’ and wanted to explain why we use this word so frequently in our reporting of major news stories.

To some readers, it can feel like including ‘allegedly’ is casting doubt on the actions or events we’re reporting on.

In reality, TDA is required to use this language because of the presumption of innocence, our court system, and our responsibility as media not to influence this.

Let’s unpack it.

Media is required to use the words ‘alleged’ or ‘allegedly’ in cases where a crime has not been proven in court.

Given that media is often reporting on news as soon as it breaks, it is more likely than not that the subject of the story has not been through the legal system yet (or is in the middle of it).

Here in Australia, our justice system is built on the idea of the presumption of innocence and a person’s right to a fair trial.

A ‘right to a fair trial’ means media reports should not assert someone is guilty before a trial has occurred, and a judge or a jury has delivered a verdict.

If this process is not followed, the defendant could argue they have not received a fair trial, which could jeopardise justice being served.

There can be serious consequences for journalists and media organisations that state as fact that a person has committed a crime before any verdict in a trial has taken place.

This is called contempt of court, and we (TDA) never want to find ourselves in this position.

Here are three stories we covered last week, all of which included the word ‘alleged’ or ‘allegedly’. Let’s go through why.

We have to say alleged when a court has not found someone guilty of the act they’re accused of. Being charged with a crime is not the same as being found guilty of said crime.

Australia is a party to seven core international human rights treaties, including some that contain the presumption of innocence.

Reporting by Zara Seidler.

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That could mean more of the stories you want to see. If you've ever forwarded TDA to a friend or quoted us at dinner, you're already part of the club. Contribute what you can, once or monthly, and make it official.

SpaceX launched commander Jessica Watkins and her crew for NASA after a three-week delay to fix a leak in their Dragon capsule’s fuel system. The flight there was the quickest yet – not only for Elon Musk’s company, but for any American entity, including NASA. The space station’s convenient launch location enabled the fast transit. This was the 13th crew SpaceX launched for NASA.

Lady Gaga has picked up a side hustle at FamilyMart.

In a new ad, the pop star works a shift at the Japanese convenience chain, ringing up customers, stocking shelves and mopping the floor.

She then asks in Japanese: “Do you want to work at FamilyMart?”

The ad was shot in Los Angeles on a purpose-built replica of a FamilyMart store as part of a recruitment push marking the chain’s 45th anniversary.

It comes as Japan faces a worker shortage, with its population shrinking and ageing.

Reporting by Adam Wan.