If Knowing You Might Be Wrong is Wrong, I Don’t Want to Be Right

Tom Avila is a contributing writer to Metro Weekly [1] news magazine and a staffer for the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) [2].

Once a month, I sit at my desk and bang out the first draft of a column that I will then agonize over and rework and rewrite and read aloud for days before hitting send. And then (because the confessional memoir is all the rage) I will go into the “Sent” portion of my e-mail account and re-open the document that I have sent out into the world and I will worry about it until it’s published.

And then I will wait. Not for accolades or notes of congratulations. I wait for someone to tell me I am wrong.

Part of this is because of the way I was raised. I was surrounded by a strong extended family that was there to be measuredly proud for our successes but also to remind us who we were and where we came from. Often. And loudly.

I recognize how hopelessly corny that sounds, like a quote from the Country Music Hall of Fame speech I’ll never get to make. But now, now that I spend a good portion of every day questioning the why and how of things, I realize how crucial a contribution that upbringing has made to my professional life.

Writing this month’s column, I find I’m still a little obsessed with Rush Limbaugh and the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). I mentally flip through the clips I’ve seen and the reports I’ve listened to and the articles I’ve read, and I’m struck by the absolute certainty of some people’s ideas and opinions.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that Limbaugh goes to bed worrying about whether what he’s put out into the world is wrong. And if he does, I’m going to say that the standing-room-only crowd at places like CPAC, ready to jump to its feet to applaud whatever he comes up with, puts any such worries safely away. That’s the beauty of preaching to the choir.

But as I write this column for a Web site for journalists concerned about the future of the industry where I regularly cheer for the cause of good media, I have to wonder: Are we all just preaching to the choir?

Admittedly, there aren’t just two or three choirs. There are dozens and dozens of individual choirs in parochial churches (read: Web sites, the breakout rooms at CPAC, what have you…) that have just enough room for these people who are against extending marriage rights to same-sex couples and this one for people who are against the right for reproductive decision-making and these benches for those who believe that any action should be protected by their own freedom of religion or faith.

And, while it should go without saying I know how much it is not, we can add to this list rooms filled with individuals who stand on the other side of the various divides, whatever those divides might be.

So what, as I know you often ask yourself at about this point in every column I write, does this have to do with journalism? Are we going to drag out the old chestnut about considering other perspectives? How about the one where we all go out and demand more time and space to tell critical stories? Or, have I finally lost it and decided to come out of the closet as the flaming liberal I’ve been pretending all this time not to be?

All excellent ideas.

Instead though, I want to think about the value being wrong.

See, what has most upset me about the Rush comments and some of the clips that I’ve seen and heard from CPAC and – again, so there is no mistake – from individuals speaking on behalf of organizations that represent the other sides of issues like marriage and immigration and civil rights, is that journalists represent all of these voices as the experts and authorities. They are the voice of this movement or that. They are speaking not for themselves but, and they will remind you of this, the hundreds or thousands or centuries of individuals whose perspective matches the side they represent.

In other words, there is no chance whatsoever that they are wrong. Ask them from as many angles as you want. They’ll tell you the same thing. And why?

They are ringers. Professional evangelicals or activists or advocates. They are absolutists who are never wrong.

It’s not that journalists try to mask that fact. It’s trumpeted proudly at the beginning of an interview or in the comma-bounded identification we give them in the third graf. Joe Smith is an economic fellow with the conservative think tank We Have the Answer. Sally Smith is the communications officer for the liberal organization Can You Believe Those Other Guys?

I’ve spoken to an expert. They’ve given me the answer, and now I’ll ask the same questions of the expert on the “other side,” and we’re good. And who can fault the reporting? I’ve asked the experts. Experts are never wrong.

We love an expert, and we absolutely should. These are people who have devoted years to reading books most of us don’t know about and written books even more may never read. While the rest of us are catching up on episodes of 30 Rock, we like to imagine these researchers and critical thinkers locked away in their dusty offices crunching numbers and creating theories.

But here’s the question.

Are we really hearing from experts any more? Or are we instead giving more and more airtime and news real estate to professional spokespeople and statisticsmiths? It’s not to take away from the credentials of the fellows and researchers and communicators working for the think tanks and associations that almost literally constitute their own sub-city here in our nation’s capital, but it is to suggest that they might not all deserve to be treated equally or quoted so often.

On at least two occasions in the past few days I have heard an economics reporter – someone in the rare position of being able to work an actual, honest-to-goodness beat – get an expert to say, “I don’t know.” Will the stimulus work? Are the Republicans right? Are we going to see another jump in unemployment?

“We don’t know.”

Wow. Can we just appreciate that for a moment? No promises. No bluster. No spin. We don’t know. Here are the facts. Here are the questions. And here’s the uncomfortable silence as we don’t try to assure you that the plan will absolutely succeed or without question fail.

The individuals who speak for the polar opposites will always have a place in reporting. There will always be absolutists on the airwaves and the front and home pages. But what do audiences really gain from simply having their personal viewpoints confirmed or rebutted?

The reality is that they already know where to turn to hear the issue ministers waiting to preach directly to them. She’s bookmarked on their laptop. They plan time in the car to catch him on the radio.

More than that, what do journalists lose when they put all their eggs in the expert basket? How much responsibility is ceded? How much of what is said is taken for granted as being accurate? How many questions fail to move beyond the well-worn sound bite? Who aren’t you talking to when you’re pulling up a chair across the desk from the chief senior fellow of “pro” or “con?”

When looking for an authority or an expert ask yourself:

• Who is everyone else talking to and how can you find the person no one’s gotten to yet? It might be as simple as a phone call to a university or two. Get yourself off the map and away from the partisan think tanks.

• Where have the lines on this particular issue been drawn? What is the “pro” side saying and what is the “con?” Be familiar with the agendas that are already out there and make sure that your questions start where the sound bites end. When you know the issue and the big picture, you can fill that background information in for your audience.

• How can you make it absolutely clear to your audience – beyond the “liberal” or “conservative” label – what might be influencing the information your expert or authority is giving? How do you get the information out without putting your audience too much at ease or too much on guard?

None of this is to dismiss the pressure of too many stories and too little time and far too few reporters. But if you’re going to be working the phone and trying to get the interview anyway, wouldn’t it be nice to hear something different coming from the other end? Wouldn’t it be great to not simply be transcribing the same interview your expert has given to four other reporters before lunch?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me.

Maybe I’m wrong.

Tom Avila is not ashamed to say that he’s sometimes off-base, off-topic and completely wrong. If you think he is, you can feel free to drop him an e-mail [3]. Just remember that the opinions offered in this essay are his own and not those of his employer.