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Paris Lees at The Guardian on the importance of Conchita Wurst’s Eurovision victory. “Conchita Wurst got up on that stage on Saturday and sang for everyone who has ever been made to feel ashamed or afraid for being different. But what does it all mean, this hair and that beard and those lashes? Conchita has been crowned queen of Europe, but is she a transvestite, a drag queen, a bearded lady, a transgender woman or what? 'She' is actually a boy called Tom. Conchita is his lady persona, a strangely compelling mix of Katy Perry and Jesus, but it's female pronouns, please, when the lashes are on – and male ones when they come off,” Lees writes. “Across Europe, gay, lesbian, bi and trans people are disowned by their families, often to be beaten, humiliated and locked away by society. Write Conchita's victory off as novelty nonsense if you like, but you'll be sniffing at the millions of people now finding inspiration in her Eurovision ashes.”
Jay Rosen at PressThink on the dangers of “he said, she said” journalism. “[On] Saturday the New York Times published on its front page an article by reporter Jeremy W. Peters about Republican Senator Rand Paul criticizing his party for backing laws that make it harder for some people to vote by requiring forms of identification they may not have,” Rosen writes. “In this article, at least, the Times does not know whether cheating is rife in today’s elections. But it knows of a passion for polarizing the issue among the bases of both parties. This helps makes it a classic in the 'he said, she said' genre. At least since the launch of Politifact.com in 2007, it’s been clear to mainstream practitioners in the US that the classic forms of he said, she said are not so much a 'sin' against high practice as an increasingly crappy level of service for what is supposed to be a high end product in news: New York Times reporting.”