Writing with Authority

A request from Nancy Weil launched this discussion of writing with authority:

I'm putting together a tip sheet at the request of reporters who want advice for how to write with authority, and who don't want to be repeatedly told that writing with authority is a matter of experience. In particular, some of our greener reporters are struggling with how to bring authority to their writing. Any specific tips and examples of stories y'all can offer would be most appreciated. - Nancy Weil, IDG News Service, Boston

This is a very small, basic thing, but I always tell interns and new reporters "don't attribute flat facts." That is, don't attribute simple information is not in dispute. You'd be surprised, going through stories, how many attributions you can easily take out on things like "the meeting will start at 7 p.m., he said."
I have no idea where I got the term "flat facts." I might have made it up. But it seems to stick in their heads. My intern two summers ago used to walk around chanting it. - Laurie Hertzel, Star Tribune, Minneapolis

One difference between authoritative and more timid writing might be (strike that, IS) looking for the import of a fact, and even the explanation of the fact, and to explictly state it, or at least to ask about it in interviews. A lot of journalists seem to be afraid of saying what something might mean.

For example, suppose that you find that the traffic cops in town, who write a lot of speeding tickets, are very fair in their pattern, in terms of ticketing or warning men and women equally, and races equally. But the many occasional ticketers are not so fair. That's a good fact.

But the import of that fact is that disparities in traffic enforcement aren't caused by a few rogue officers.

And further, it means you can't fix racial profiling by concentrating all your training and supervision on the officers who write the most tickets. You can say that on your own from the information you have.

And what could explain that pattern? Here you need to quote people speculating. Perhaps, like heart surgeons, people who do a lot of something get better at it. The answer may be complicated. Embrace that complexity. It might be the best part.
Bill Dedman, Power Reporting newsroom training, Boston

Writing with authority is not a matter of experience. It's a matter of reporting. You acquire authority by knowing something as a fact, not because someone told you. If you witnessed me punching Bill (not that I would), you could report authoritatively that I punched Bill. If Laurie told you that I punched Bill, you'd have to write, "Buttry punched Bill, Laurie said." Somewhere in between, you acquire authority: perhaps by watching a videotape, perhaps by interviewing me and I admit it, perhaps by interviewing several witnesses, perhaps by obtaining a police report in which they say that I admitted it. Where that line is that you move from attribution to authority is something for each reporter and your editor to decide. Experience might place that line somewhere differently for an experienced reporter than for a young reporter, but not without the reporting.

I've joined, for the most part, the push to write more with authority, but I offer these caveats:

1. I think Jayson Blair (and our readers' awareness of that scandal) has heightened the importance of telling readers how we know that, which is the opposite of writing with authority.
2. Sometimes multiple eyewitnesses can be wrong. I wrote a series several years ago on the 25th anniversary of a team's victory in the Iowa girls state basketball tournament. I asked about 20 people who played in, coached and watched that game why Farragut won. Everyone told the same story: Barb Wischmeier, Mediapolis' 6-foot-1 star, was scoring a lot of points early in the game and Farragut's coach sent 5-foot-2 Tanya Bopp in to guard her. Bopp drew a bunch (sometimes it was a specific number like 3 or 4) of charging fouls and Wischmeier became less aggressive and Farragut came back to win. Everyone said that. By most standards I could write that story authoritatively. But I found a videotape of the game. I watched it never doubting this story, but just looking for details and wanting to describe the victory celebration or some such thing. When I finished watching, I thought I must have missed something. So I watched again, counting fouls. It happened once. That one foul did fluster Wischmeier and turned the game around, but it only happened once. And I learned that vivid, honest memories can't always be trusted, so maybe they need to be attributed.

- Steve Buttry, Omaha World-Herald

Reading a story written with authority and perspective is wonderful. But I think it's worth listening very carefully if a reporter hesitates about writing with authority. For me, that hesitation sets off alarm bells to stop, pull back a bit and explore the reporter's concerns.
With a veteran reporter who clearly has a depth of understanding on a topic, some significant encouragement to write with authority seems right. But it seems risky to urge a young, inexperienced reporter, or a reporter dropped into a topic area in which she or he has little background, to write with authority. The people in your community who do know a lot about the topic at hand will sniff it out quickly if a reporter is trying to feign being an authority - and you'll lose their respect and cooperation on future stories.
One way to help newer reporters incorporate authority into their stories without bluffing about being an authority would be to work with them to develop sources who can speak to the topic with authority - and include them in their stories. Mining your state's colleges and universities could help with that. - Kate Parry, St. Paul Pioneer Press

I agree with Steve that writing with authority comes only from solid reporting. One point you might want to deal with, though, is that writers who lack confidence can undermine their own solid reporting with tentative or hesitant phrasing.

They do this sometimes with what Jack Hart calls knee-jerk attribution. If something doesn't need attribution, just say it confidently.

Another problem--or perhaps it's part of the same problem--is the fear that makes writers cling to jargon and specialized language. This happens a lot, for example, when reporters are asked to fill in on the police beat. They use cop talk and legal jargon because they are afraid to use plain English.

So we get this mouthful: "charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious bodily injury." All that means is attempted homicide. (Yes, I know there may be times when the specific elements of the charge need to be explained--but in that case, they need explanation, not parroting.)

When writers lean on legalese and other jargon, their stories sound unauthoritative--and are. - John Rains, The Fayetteville Observer

What a great topic. To the previous insights, allow me to add my two favorites. The first and most basic, which doesn't preclude inexperience, is to report like hell until you have no doubts about your info. But to me the most telling question is: What does it mean? I think readers are dying for us to help them connect the dots.

Meaning is reported in the same fashion as names and addresses and locations. Sometimes it's found in reporting what the event/trend means to those involved or affected by it, and that reporting can be distilled into a single sentence or graf, even the lead.

Sometimes, meaning is obvious from past reporting (now, this may preclude inexperience). My schools reporter and I experienced this recently when our local school district released its latest proposed budget cuts. Rather than jump in and say "The Wichita school district on Friday announced its wants to cut $12.5 million," we asked ourselves, what does this latest twist mean? We both quickly discerned the answer, which follows:

The Wichita school district's budget problems will finally invade the classroom this fall.

After years of building up the system needed to boost student achievement and working to keep cuts away from instruction, the district will be forced to chip away at all it has done.

No matter how the budget cuts play out, students will lose. Students who need help the most will lose the most because the people who provide the extra help will be the first to go.

The district expects to cut $12.5 million from its $375 million budget for next school year to deal with rising costs. At least 84 jobs, including 10 teaching jobs and 15 paraeducator jobs, will be eliminated.

Those positions are a small fraction of the 3,600 teachers and 800 paraeducators the district employs. But paraeducator Cheryl Jackson said the personalized attention she and others like her give students is vital to helping them improve.

Jackson, whose position at Linwood Elementary School will be eliminated, worked until this month with students in small groups to improve their writing.

Like other schools with poor test scores or that have large numbers of low-income
students, Linwood received extra staff and resources, which are now being threatened.
"If they don't have people like myself working with them in small groups, there is just no human way to meet all the needs of that child," Jackson said Friday.

Principals and district administrators agree that cutting positions like Jackson's could jeopardize student achievement.

"We've tried to get extra staff to schools that struggle academically, and that's where most of the support staff is to be cut," superintendent Winston Brooks said.

- Kevin McGrath, The Wichita Eagle

When it comes to writing with authority, all the advice about good reporting and solid information trumps. But forceful writing counts for something, too. Here's a tip sheet I use when I'm doing workshops on that subject:

10 Ways to Achieve High Impact
1. Prefer strong verbs.
2. Minimize use of verbals.
3. Convert weak nouns to strong verbs.
4. Prefer simple past and present tenses.
5. Convert passive voice to active.
6. Avoid expletives.
7. Eliminate redundancy.
8. Break up excessively long sentences.
9. Eliminate little qualifiers.
10. Reduce the number of prepositional phrases.
- Jack Hart, The Oregonian, Portland

An addendum to Jack's tips, this one for maximizing authority when you can't write completely with authority: Hedge just once. In other words, attribute or use hedging words like might, could, perhaps, possibly, etc. Don't do both. - Steve Buttry, Omaha World-Herald