Not long ago, I had an assignment from a client that involved a little bit of research. They wanted some statistics to go along with the article and support their point.
I came across a fantastic bit of data. In one sentence, I could have proven their case and made them look like authorities. For about five minutes.
See, that data I found had no corroborating source. None. The further I dug into it, the more I was convinced this was a case of a writer or company making up their own data.
Imagine if I’d used that source without double-checking — my client would have face potential embarrassment and reputation damage, and I’d have lost a client for life (rightly so).
And yet, there isn’t a day when I don’t find at least one article with questionable facts and statistics. (Think of the infamous “According to sources…” with no mention of what that source is.)
Facts matter. What matters more is that we writers get them right for our clients.
It’s no secret that we’re experiencing a state of “alternative facts” in our politics. For example, a family member was outraged over the “post-birth abortion” bills that they said Democrats were pushing. I mentioned that there wasn’t an ounce of evidence to support that, and I looked on the Thomas.gov site — the place where all the bills and legislative actions are listed.
Ah, but after coming home from church yesterday, my family member said that another member of the congregation says it’s absolutely true.
Right there is how falsehoods spread. Someone who is dead sure she’s right spreads misinformation to another person who trusts her judgment (and clearly without a filter, but I digress a little).
It took no time at all for me to go online and find a credible source that explained both the reason people think that way and the actual facts. Post-birth abortion is another dog whistle to make people froth and fuss and to divide us all yet again down these ridiculous party lines.
But just because 38 percent of your audience is going to doubt you at the outset doesn’t mean you stop giving a shit about the facts. No, my writerly friend, that’s when you double up on your conscientiousness. It’s when you bust your writerly ass to make sure you’ve stated things exactly as they are and left your own embellishment or emotions the hell out of it.
Because we may be in a state of utter clusterf***dom now, but eventually common sense will return.
How can you as a writer be a champion of the truth? Here are the rules I follow:
- Don’t force the point or lead the story. Forcing the point is to finesse those facts to make them sound like you said something you didn’t really say. Like saying “nearly every grade school child asked hates broccoli” when you’ve asked exactly four. And leading the story is just as bad — don’t keep asking the same question six ways in order to lead your interview subject to the answer you want. Let the actual answer be the right one. It is.
- Don’t write for assholes. This includes content mills that think it’s okay to just rewrite someone else’s work or pull facts out of your backside. It includes clients who insist you include a statistic that you can’t find substantiating evidence of. It includes anyone who would revise your work and introduce falsehoods (and doubly bad is if they refuse to fix said mistakes when you alert them).
- Verify, verify, verify. And then when you’re finished with that, verify it again. If you read something that quoted the National Institutes of Health or the Census Bureau but you can’t find it on either website, call or email. If you can’t find it after that, drop it and find a different statistic. I’ll spend no more than an hour of my time total trying to verify (and to me, that’s a lot of time). If I can’t find it, I drop the questionable material. Your reputation absolutely requires you to be 100-percent certain of everything you present.
- Present all sides. I did that in a recent article. Three experts were saying X. The fourth said no, it’s Y. If I’d dropped that fourth person’s comments, that would have been a) irresponsible journalism, and b) it would have cheated the audience out of all sides of the story. Also, it could have been a boring story as a result. Don’t shy away from opinions that run counter to your article focus. Embrace them. Let the story come out even if it takes you down a different path (especially then — those make for the best stories).
- Correct honest mistakes. Frankly, the honest ones are the only ones we writers should be making. If we do our jobs right, the times where our data come into question will be minimal. But we all screw up on occasion. Own it, fix it, work harder to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Writers, what are the challenges you see these days when it comes to the truth and our role in conveying it?
Have you ever had a situation in which a client expected you to embellish, stretch the truth, or just make it up?
How do you make sure your work is factually correct?
32 responses to “The Fight for Truth: A Freelancer’s Role”
Pardon what’s undoubtedly going to be a long comment. I know I haven’t shown my face around much of anywhere lately, but you’ve hit on some things here I care deeply about and believe are incredibly important for freelance writers — especially newer ones — to understand early on. So I want to chime in.
I’m with you on most of this. Have been preaching this for years, researching the ill effects especially regarding online media has been my #1 passion project professionally for years, and it makes me feel physically ill to see how low both major media outlets and even bloggers have fallen.
Where we differ is on giving a platform to all sides. I consider the aim for “balance” one of the most destructive things writers — especially journalists — do these days. Facts rarely have sides.
That’s not to say differing perspectives shouldn’t ever be included, or that there aren’t sometimes differing valid takes, but that they shouldn’t be included for the sake of doing so or the sake of appearing balanced.
Any “expert” disagreeing strongly with most others requires even deeper digging before I’d include them in a piece — their credentials would have to be vetted more (because anyone with a big mouth can play “expert” with good publicity these days), as would the sources or studies they’ve based their differing opinion on (after all, you can even find “experts” supporting anti-vaxxers based on long de-bunked studies).
It’s a fine line. You need the critical thinking skills to sniff out BS and faulty logic and bad data or methodology to do it well. That’s something severely lacking these days (as is the time or budget required for that vetting — not all on the writers). So we end up with far too much good faith effort to be balanced or not overly controversial, and what we ultimately get is even more misinformation spread around.
Totally with you on all other points.
Along the lines of verifying things you cite, this reminds me of a textbook example from a while back (and why I no longer read ProBlogger or most other large blogs that rely on under-qualified guest posters for a significant portion of their content).
Writers need to remember that there’s a big difference between a valid source and a popular one. If you’re blogging for example, it’s rarely responsible to simply cite a more popular blogger as your source (unless you’re citing a specific study or experiment that individual personally conducted and reported on).
In this case, there was a guest poster on ProBlogger (working under apparently no editorial standards) who cited a statistic from another very popular blog. But the numbers didn’t sound credible, so I visited the linked source.
The more popular blogger who was cited included that statistic in their own post. But THEY didn’t have a source for it.
I scrolled further down and found an infographic in their post. That was where they pulled the statistic from.
So, ok… any good infographic lists the sources at the end, right? Well, this one didn’t. No sources. Just stats being passed around by people more worried about appearing to have influence than they were about the BS they were influencing people to believe.
Basically, a company put together an infographic, a popular blogger shared it and treated its non-sourced statistics as fact, and other bloggers then cited them as the source for those “facts.”
This isn’t at all uncommon anymore.
So yes… verify. That means doing more work than simply making sure so-and-so really did state something that you can quote. It includes making sure you understand the sourcing and context. Anything short of that and you’re doing a disservice to your readers and your clients (and you’ll probably have to educate some clients on the importance of this and the reputational risk if they screw it up).
And pretty pretty please, remember that popularity does not equal credibility. You’re far better off citing an actual expert with a small following (think a scientist, a professor, someone with a lifetime’s experience in an industry who isn’t seeking attention for it) than someone who blathers on about things they half-understand but who has the marketing chops to build a large audience. One cares about finding and disseminating facts. The other is in a perpetual d*ck-measuring contest.
This is true in traditional outlets where the focus can be more on ratings or subscription numbers than the reporting. It’s true in online media that focuses on sensationalizing stories for clicks and ad dollars. And it’s unfortunately even worse in blogging, even when you feel like there’s a direct connection with the “expert” because they’re the publisher.
In just the freelance writing world itself I’ve seen this countless times over the years:
catching a copywriting “expert” who taught writers by plagiarizing from an ad copywriting book I happened to be familiar with;
a freelance writing “expert” who would change their advice to new writers based on who was paying them;
another one who ripped off colleagues and put thinly-edited copies of their work behind a paywall;
the freelancers offering advice when the bulk of their own income doesn’t come from actual freelancing, but instead selling things to new writers instead of clients;
the “experts” people assume know their sh*t because they don’t see how many people come begging for help from the rest of us when that expert’s advice gets them nowhere and they’re terrified to speak out publicly because of their popularity;
the new-ish “experts” who only built a name for themselves because of circle-jerk promotion with a group of friends where they all called each other experts;
the other new-ish “experts” who built their names on others’ backs, getting actual experienced pros to do the heavy lifting for them (usually relying on ego-bait because they have no real experience of their own to teach from).
It’s everywhere.
So I can’t say this enough: If you want any credibility yourself as a writer, you MUST remember that popularity does not equal authority. The best thing you can do to make sure you’re spreading truth in your writing is to have a solid grasp on identifying credible sources and vetting the data those sources’ positions stem from.
And Lori… I don’t know what your planned focus is for this year’s Writers Worth Month, but if you think this topic would tie in, I’m happy to send you a guest post covering this in a more practical way.
And here’s some further reading on responsibility in reporting data if anyone wants to do better. This happened a few years back (I believe it was Philippa Willitts who brought it to my attention).
Long story short, a journalist wanted to see just how easily media outlets could be conned into sharing bad and intentionally misleading / spun data. In this case they targeted nutrition media sources with a story about chocolate. But this is commonplace when writers rely on single sources with agendas who provide data or their own poorly-developed studies to make the points they want people to believe. Apply this example to medical studies, and you can start to imagine just how dangerous a problem this can be.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/28/410313446/why-a-journalist-scammed-the-media-into-spreading-bad-chocolate-science
Nice to see you around these parts again, Jenn!
The TruTV show “Adam Ruins Everything” did an episode (I think is was “Adam Ruins Nutrition” from Season 1) where they showed how easily false information can be supported when companies or “experts” publish “studies” filled with data that supports their own agenda. And you know how they proved how easy it is for those things to happen? They made ups something ridiculous and got it published in an academic journal. I’m pretty sure they were inspired by the fake chocolate study.
I wish it wasn’t so common Paula. It’s become a “see numbers, spread numbers” world, especially in online publishing. People are so worried about appearing credible that they can’t be bothered to actually BE credible.
Jenn, thanks for the comment. Much to chew on. 🙂
Going to disagree with you big time on the presenting-all-sides issue. It goes against everything I was taught both academically and on the job to do anything other than present a balanced view.
But I think you may be confusing allowing opposing opinion with allowing alternative facts. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about allowing all sides to have a say. That doesn’t mean a good journalist won’t then insert facts that may refute one of those arguments. It means ignoring the elephant in the room doesn’t make it any less an elephant. So to speak. 😉
For those of you who are unfamiliar with journalistic ethics, it’s not up to journalists to push opinions or agenda, but to cover a story sensibly and with care. That means allowing for Steve, who thinks that marijuana is harmful to a person’s brain development, to present his case against two other experts who think there’s no harm in it at all. Journalists have to be credible, especially these days. They cannot ignore the opposing opinion, whether they agree with it or not.
This is a post about working toward the truth. As such, I’d be flogged by my Journalism professors, my editors, and my editorial directors if I ignored the opposing side. I know one who would just kick me outright for it. 😉
I think it goes without saying that if a source isn’t credible you don’t include it. That’s part of the getting-to-the-truth bit. But when I’m facing four executives and one is dissenting and has statistics to back up his claim, I’m going to present it. If I didn’t, I’d be doing my readers — and my editors — a massive disservice, not to mention stretching the ethical code a bit too far.
LOL We’re allowed to disagree on some thing Lori. Working in pajamas is the hill I choose to die on when it comes to you. 😉
“Alternative facts” are a no-go under all circumstances in my book. But I very much feel the same about opposing opinions and feeling a need to be “balanced.” I didn’t say “never.” There are cases where that might make sense. But an opinion, even from a professed expert, doesn’t always have a place in responsible reporting, especially if it’s added just to offer a different take. I’ve seen far too many subject matter experts with views based on either agendas or an otherwise innocent misunderstanding of the data. If a writer is competent enough in the subject matter to evaluate that data and verify it really demonstrates what the outlier expert claims it does, that’s absolutely valid. The danger is when writers aren’t either specialists in the subject matter themselves or they’re not in a position to understand the data and methodology that led to that outlier view.
I wish this wasn’t something I see routinely, but it is. Not all stories have multiple sides. Getting quotes from multiple people involved in some circumstance is great. But subject matter experts claiming the same basic data says two very different things is very different, and that’s where the media so often demonstrates a failure of either morals or competence. It’s not enough to share statistics. The writer has to understand them and be confident they’re sharing them responsibly. In your case, I know you’re a competent subject matter expert who should be able to sniff out BS. My bigger concern is when newer writers do what Paula mentioned — falling for an agenda and spreading misinformation because it was wrapped up in a pretty little statistical package.
Things. Ugh…
You might remember this one, Lori. A couple years back, an editor assigned me a round-up of household safety tips. She kept insisting I had to include the dangers of storing old electronics – she seemed to think they posed a radiation hazard. I contacted the CDC and other healthy and safety organizations only to be told there is no evidence to support that claim. I even spoke to a researcher who said the same thing. But my editor kept insisting I include it. I simply kept directing her back to the information the experts provided.
And another time, way back when, a different editor wanted me to write an article about something to do with frequent flyer miles, if I recall. And whatever his notion was — I think it had something to do with incentive travel and frequent flyer miles — was quickly shot down by all experts. The editor just KNEW there had to be a story there, but there was no evidence so I refused to write his article.
Good to see you Jenn, and I agree… so much of the news pretends to be balanced when its actually thinly disguised opinion – witness the ‘need’ to balance climate change report by reporting the deniers as if they are credible. They aren’t. Are the deniers entitled to their opinion? Yes, but if I give a denier the same weight as I give the scientists who have numbers way in their favor I’m actually supporting the deniers which isn’t remotely “fair and balanced.”
Yes, I verify or label my stuff as opinion, but the attempt at balance is one reason we’re in so much trouble today – IMO of course.
Anne, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. The pretense of balance isn’t balance — it’s pretense. If you’re going to write a balanced piece, you should include the other points of view. That doesn’t mean you can’t refute them with actual facts, but not letting the other side have a voice feels way too one-sided for me.
I despise media outlets running opinion pieces alongside what’s supposed to be actual news. Many today seem to go out of their way to treat that (and even paid-for content) the same way they treat news, which leads to readers treating it as though it’s equal. When print publications were dominant, things were different because they were more separate. Today, with online publications and 24/7 TV news, it’s just gross.
The worst part is that I’ve worked on the other side of this — the people who spin “studies” to fit an agenda. I’ve been pushing back against it for years (contrary to popular belief, it’s neither good nor routine PR), and one of my most popular consulting services these days is actually helping companies improve their methodology up front and then properly interpret what their data tells them before they twist it into some nonsense narrative thinking it’ll help them be seen as thought leaders.
My clients hire me because they want to do better. But many don’t. And marketers have been teaching companies and individuals how to corrupt this process to look like experts for years. It works. And it works because people are inherently easy to manipulate. If you give debunked studies and those who lean on them a platform, you’re directly putting that misleading information into people’s hands. And some people will always believe things that sound good in theory, that support their preconceived notions, or that come from people with a fancy title that make them appear trustworthy even when they’re not. This is precisely how we got to a point in public discourse where people poo-poo real experts and embrace frauds. The media has been complicit in this for a long time. And they’re still in denial over their role. That’s the most disgusting aspect of it all.
I remember that! Wow, that was just pushing a non-existent story, wasn’t it?
Yep. I can’t remember if the editor decided to pursue it in his own, but I clearly remember his attitude that I probably didn’t look into it heard enough. (If only he could have heard the laughter of every single expert I asked about it on his behalf!)
Good for you for sticking to your guns Paula!
Hit the nail on the head, Lori. Because we share a very similar niche, I know we also share this major frustration. So much of my specialty is in the health care arena. Talk about the difficulty of validating so-called facts!
I have spent endless hours searching for the original source only to see the same content repeated over and over with no apparent proof. My hard and fast rule – if you can’t find the original – you don’t use it. Period.
What’s even more frustrating is when you do find the original source/study/whatever and the statistic or interpretation that is being blasted everywhere as fact is not even true. Somewhere someone put their own spin on some stat and created a monster that stalks it way through headlines and other content.
But, the real killer (sometimes literally) in my niche is to discover fake studies that hit the pages of renowned industry journals. Can’t get much worse than making up a study that supports a stance that can have life-threatening consequences.
I see the value in presenting all sides – as long as it’s an unbiased view to share information so individuals can make up their own minds. Too much of what is shoved down our throats today is slanted one way. That’s fine for editorials or in expressing your point of view.
As you know, the insurance industry is heavily regulated. In my corporate days, those of us in marketing had to constantly ensure we were not making claims that could not be supported. Unsubstantiated claims such as “the best in the business” were simply not tolerated and could end up with fines. We couldn’t even use the term “comprehensive” to describe coverage. Today, I wonder what happened. Perhaps the sheer volume of claims proliferated by social media madness became too overwhelming. But, this old marketer (in more ways than one) will continue to fight the good fight.
Cathy, EXACTLY THIS. Don’t use a “fact” that isn’t verifiable. Period!
And it’s that slant right there that should not be happening. Totally agree with you. You said this: “I see the value in presenting all sides – as long as it’s an unbiased view to share information so individuals can make up their own minds.”
That’s exactly what I learned on the job and in college — you share the information and keep your damn bias to yourself.
Oh, I know what you mean about the unsubstantiated. It’s a common problem in marketing and communications. They’re there to promote, not parse facts. It gets them into trouble far too often. I saw the disparity when I switched my major from Journalism to Business Communications. Talk about opposite sides of the same coin! Yikes, the stuff communications folks can do that journalists should never do is eye-opening!
That’s not to say communications and marketing don’t have a place — they do. They just should never pass themselves off as journalists.
“Somewhere someone put their own spin on some stat and created a monster that stalks it way through headlines and other content.”
I feel like I’m going to visualize this every time my BS detector goes off now. Thanks Cathy. LOL
Well, I am a visual person, Jenn.
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Totally agree, Lori, especially about “verify, verify, verify”. As a former journalist, cross-checking and verifying is the bedrock of my writing. The same is true as a former academic, where it’s important to triangulate. I’ve come across so many so-called facts that disappear down a rabbit hole of nothingness when you start digging.
Also agree with point 2. Some potential clients don’t even get that making stuff up or lying with statistics is just plain wrong. There’ve been a couple I’ve had to educate briefly before heading to the exit.
As for the question of balance, as a journalist, I was taught to aim for it. And I was also taught to make it clear when you’re presenting facts and when you’re presenting opinion. If it’s an opinion piece, you can support your argument with the facts on your side (even if you acknowledge that there are dissenting voices). If it’s a factual piece, then you present the facts without embellishment. If multiple perspectives exist and are relevant, include them.
And don’t get me started on the fake experts (hi, Jenn! 🙂 ) It’s so tempting to name and shame, sometimes. I see new writers following advice from people who really don’t know what they’re talking about.
Also agree with Jenn on the issue of popularity vs. credibility. I’m often incredibly disappointed to visit a formerly credible, expert source, only to find that most of the content is written by guest posters with no credentials or from marketing firms.
I was hoping you’d weigh in, Sharon, because you, like Lori, are what I think of as old school journalism, a high standard we are sorely missing today. I laughed out loud at your temptation to “name and shame.” ? But, then I do appreciate at least one aspect of getting older. I find the fake experts aren’t worth my limited energy. ?
“Old-school journalism”, for sure, Cathy (emphasis on the old!) 😀
LOL seems like we’ve formed an informal club of old-school journalists. 😉 Not so old-school, really. We follow the ASJ ethics guidelines — doesn’t that make us part of the in crowd? LOL
And right there I couldn’t come up with a single thing other than “in crowd” that wouldn’t scream my age. 😉
Agree on all points, Sharon. There are far too many dubious statistics out there to not do your homework!
I’ve had a few clients in the distant past who kept pushing for me to include stuff that wasn’t true. Wouldn’t do it. Every molecule in my body resisted, and I walked away. No job is worth losing your credibility over.
Totally with you on balance. Yes to the facts versus opinions. In a lot of what I write for magazines, there are opposing opinions. In those cases, I present them with the same weight. They’re opinions from industry experts. That they don’t agree doesn’t mean they aren’t correct. It depends a lot on their position. One person could be a meteorologist who sees climate change up close. Another could be an insurer who sees it from a claims perspective. Another could be a consultant who helps companies prevent weather-related losses. Their opinions come from their expertise, which holds a different perspective. That makes for a much richer story, in my opinion. And it allows me to present all sides and let readers form their own takeaways.
That kind of “balance” sounds professional. I don’t know that we’re really in all that much disagreement. My issue is with larger media who do it just to do it (seeking other opinions even if obscure just so they aren’t accused of being biased for reporting facts that have no bias). I don’t worry at all about people like you or Sharon. It’s more that new writers often fail to understand the difference, or they don’t have the skills or understanding yet to even realize when they’re doing it or when they’re giving a platform to misinformation because they’ll include stats or quotes that “sound good” without really understanding where those statistics or takes are coming from.
Back to my cave now at least until spring finally shows its face. Should feel like it finally here this week, but we still have several inches of snow on the ground. 🙁
I quit writing a column a few years ago when I started getting notes that I could only refer to products by the site’s sponsors, and I had to include links to a certain amount in each article. That’s not an article. That’s an advertorial. Yes, I’ve written those, but they were clearly marked “advertorial” and didn’t carry a byline to pose as an article.
Way, way, WAY back in the day, I took an intensive by a then-editor at the NYT on the then “NYT Style” (before they did things like hire climate change deniers). It was about the who-what-when-where-why and that each position presented in anything considered a “news” article had to be backed up by 3 individual credible sources. It was also the preference for features, but also there were guidelines because features tended to include opinions. Essays, editorials, and anything where the journalist inserted a personal viewpoint rather than simply reporting the story had a different set of guidelines. That’s one of the reasons people were so infuriated by Jayson Blair. He wouldn’t even have gotten a shrug in this day and age. There have been plenty of publications I’ve worked for with fact checkers, where I had to provide a fact-checking sheet, and the only “unnamed source” allowed would be if it was the type of story where the source’s life could be in danger. I didn’t do many of those. I wasn’t on the crime beat. As the industry evolved, then the big outcry (which I still stick to when I teach) is “Wikipedia is NEVER listed as a credible source.” It can be a jumping off point to lead you to other sources, but not the source itself in any type of footnote, etc.
One of the things I’ve encountered too often in marketing meetings with corporate clients is being handed stacks of data and told to spin it to reflect something the client wants, whether or not the data supports it because “data can be manipulated.”
Of course, Broadway publicists have long turned manipulation into an art form, when pulling a positive quote out of a negative review for marketing purposes. Especially pulling from bad reviews by theatre critics who hated theatre so much we all wondered why they were in the job in the first place.
“how” should have been at the end of who-what-where-when-why.
Devon, I had that very kind of job once. It was one of those “driveway glossies” I call them — you know the ones they leave in your mailbox or lying in your driveway. A pool and spa one, I think.
Anyway, I was in the middle of the assignment about innovations in BBQ grilling when the editor said I couldn’t use a source I’d dug for. No one told me until I’d already invested time into it that the sources had to be advertisers. That was my last assignment. And I told them to take my name off it (they didn’t). The editor was an actual editor who’d moved to the job thinking he could run a tight ship. (He left once he realized it wasn’t actual journalism.)
Yes, the spin! Lord, I hate that. Luckily, I’ve had just one client ask that of me, and it was one of the shortest-lived relationships I’ve had. There’s embellishment — “Nearly half of all people (when it’s 4.6 out of ten and your trying to make a case that this is a BIG deal when it isn’t)” — then there’s outright lying.
The three sources — absolutely! I’ve written countless articles, and every one of them has a minimum of three sources. Sure, they may be more of the industry-perspective articles, but I argue that those need opposing voices equally, if not more so. People are making business decisions based on what they’re reading, and if an article predicts all’s right with the insurance world when the fourth person warns against something specific (and I don’t include it), that’s harming the reader.
I think the Jayson Blairs of the world, while more plentiful in supply these days, do still get vetted. Maybe not as publicly as he did, but I’ve seen it with several of the publications I’ve worked with over the years. I know of one within the last three years that did remove a writer because facts didn’t matter to that person.
If this current administration does anything positive, it will be when people begin the return to facts because the alternative facts are so ridiculously, obviously bogus. I know editors are fighting the tough fight to verify the sh*t out of everything right now.
When people stop enjoying being lied to (and it’s a minority, but a large minority), they will demand more. Let’s hope that’s sooner rather than later.
I go to source: if someone tells me A & B were having coffee together (trite example to prove a salient point) I ask both A & B, separately, but before they have time to contact one another, whether it is true.
Not so trite, Tanja. I agree with your approach– unless you verify it, it didn’t happen. 😉
Well-said Lori! Have you read “A World Without Mind”? Equally challenging and insightful about the craft of writing today.
Charlie! Long time, my friend. We miss you in the writers’ group. I have not read that, but it’s now on my list. Thank you.
Hope life at the corporate level is treating you well!