Here’s how you know that a reporter doesn’t have anything new to report: he tells you he’s conducted a bunch of interviews and he tells you what those interviews mean — because you might be confused or dubious that there is anything fresh at all in those interviews if you weren’t told ahead of time what to make of them. See, for example, this lede from the latest Palin-bashing story in the New York Times:

So you’re going to tell me something I already know, except you’re going to give me some new insight into the problem, right? You’re going to score an interview with her erstwhile allies, or her inner circle, or… her hairdresser? Yes, despite all those interviews in Alaska and Washington, the top quote in the story comes from Jessica Steele, proprietor of the Beehive hair salon in Wasilla, Alaska: