It’s been a busy week.

Captivating talks by Intel’s Genevieve Bell and NYU’s Jay Rosen (in the pic above) – more here on Jay’s talk, here’s how it looked in my tweet stream.

Off to see @jayrosren_nyu talk

“news is arbitrary, improvised due to drive of production routines”

“what happens when production revolutionised by web?”

“what if your laptop got updates for software you don’t have installed? This is what news does every day”

“Stories like This American Life’s Giant Pool of Money ‘install the software’ to fire that interest”

Need understanding of big picture before you’ll be interested in incremental news

“journalists should be producing public understanding, not just incremental updates”

@jayrosen_nyu calls for ABC to create backgrounder for topical areas of news – extension to Background Brief?

Puts hand up RT @matt_levinson: @jayrosen_nyu calls ABC to create backgrounder for topical areas of news – extension to Background Brief?

“do things like NYT’s Topics pages and Google’s Living Stories actually help improve understanding?”

Someone just commented on “anthopomorphic” climate change. Obviously a mistake, but ironically encapsulates the issue.

To go see another @jayrosen_nyu talk or get lunch?

@isabel_lo I think it’s going to be a late lunch!

@tmgrimson yes, giving several talks today. on journalists as explainers, citizen journalism, and business models. just the little stuff.

RT: @girlinblack From the Accidental Art file: @matt_levinson’s twitpic from a @jayrosen_nyu talk he’s sitting in right now: http://twitpic.com/2e6wxy

“NYT introduced ‘geek squad’ of 50 to newsroom – clever way of changing to more collaborative culture”

“The Guardian able to be nimble because it’s a trust – needs to ensure sustainable future, despite mid term risks”

Lots of questions about Assange and WikiLeaks – “first global media org”? Anarchist? Hacker? Adaptive to say the least.

“have to find places where closed systems (media – verification) and open (accessible, participatory) work best”

“a journalist is just a heightened case of an informed citizen”

Tracking coverage of the bushfires in Victoria over the past week, one story’s niggled at my logic systems.

Insurers count the cost of fire devastation – SMH, February 13.

The insurance industry said Government intervention after such disasters did not help reduce the strain on the industry and contributed to a moral hazard where people were less likely to hold private insurance.

Paul Giles, from the Insurance Council of Australia, said: “Those people who do insure look at people who don’t insure and say, ‘Well, I’ve been paying my insurance premiums for a number of years, why do I bother if the Government steps in?”‘.

Mr Giles said the fire services levy and stamp duty accounted for up to 40 per cent of home and contents insurance premiums, and governments would be better off encouraging people to take out private insurance.

It’s a beguiling argument, and it works logically. People tend to be less cautious when they know they’ll be bailed out. But context is everything.

‘Moral hazard’ isn’t applied evenly. In the past year, as this article points out, large insurers and banks have gone to governments, hat in hand, for bailout money.

Months ago, when the president announced a paltry plan to help out a few of the millions of homeowners who got caught in the sub-prime loan mess, he reiterated the credo: “It’s not government’s job to bail out … those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could not afford.” Days ago, when he endorsed the giant Fed bailout of Wall Street, the president signaled it was government’s job to bail out big bankers who had made decisions to buy and sell risky securities they knew (or should have known) they could not afford.

At the same time, Australia faces escalating climate risks – bushfires, floods, sea level rise and storm surge. How prepared are insurers for these things, are they adequately prepared for the payouts?

Beyond all that, evidence is increasing that we just don’t know how to assess risk.