Thread by @paulgknox

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope Thread:

Kyle Pope, like many journalism critics, says news people have two choices: make facts a fetish and write encyclopedia entries, or tell deeper, more honest stories. But another option is hiding in plain sught: the interpretive news report. 1/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 2 The craft of reporting evolved in North America from circumstances in which storifying, largely borrowing tropes from pre-existing morality tales, substituted for the absence of readily available facts and reliable accounts of events. 2/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 3 Improvements in transportation, communications and news production allowed reporting to flourish from mid-19C onward. Elements of the narrative and partisanship persisted. But for many reasons, audiences rewarded news organizations that set up the best reporting systems. 3/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 4 These systems were intricate and sophisticated, with innovations in organization, technology, presentation & distribution. Rapid news collection required new writing and editing conventions. Ranking discoveries, observations and elicited views took precedence over ... 4/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 5 ... the preservation of narrative form and discursive style. The caricature of this shift has it imposing the “news from nowhere” style in the service of objectivity or impartiality. In reality, selectivity and interpretation were not only allowed but requuired. 5/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 6 What’s required now is a reaffirmation of the report as the basic unit of news, and of selectivity and interpretation as essential to the news reporter’s craft. A place for narratives remains, but we can’t bet all or even most of our chips on “story.” 6/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 7 Facts are degraded currency because the marketplace can easily be flooded with falsehoods or inaccuracies? Why is this so? Because relatively few phenomena can be rendered as incontestable fact. And many of the things we call facts are really expressions of probability. 7/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 8 Some observations lend themselves to accurate description; some don’t. A train either passed a level crossing or it didn’t. But my wife and I differ on colours. I say a set of towels is gray-green; she says they’re pure charcoal. A binder cover is orange to me, red to her. 8/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 9 A drug that’s said to cure people of a disease doesn’t cure them all. Even if it cures 98%, for a particular patient that’s still an expression of probability. No one puts the “+-3% 19 times out of 20” in a poll story but it makes the headline probable rather than certain. 9/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 10 What this means is that interpretation is unavoidable. Only with interpretation does a news report make sense. Narrative requires interpretation, but for news the interpretation must be at the service of comprehension and potential action, not the integrity of narrative. 10/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 11 As for truth, it really has no place in this discussion. Most often what we really mean by truth is accuracy, & we should use that word. But truth is best understood as personal or individual: having done my best to investigate and evaluate, this is what seems true to me. 11/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 12 The acknowledgements and honesty that @kylepope refers to are the equivalent if the interpretation I’m talking about. But the context is different. What’s essential is not a proclamation of honesty in a single piece, but a continuous evolving interpretation over many ... 12/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 13 ... news reports. Thus the reporter reveals to herself/himself and simultaneously to the audience, as the news being reported also unfolds. This process empowers everyone it touches, and the power comes from the relentless ubfolding of events. 13/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 14 People, don’t lose your nerve. All around us reporters are delivering solid interpretation in news reports, and also, although less frequently, in narratives (“storytelling”). Celebrate this and encourage it. Journalism must re-centre itself in news reporting. 14/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 15 And interpretation lies at the core of the best news reporting. Besides writing technique it involves intentional investigation, guided discovery, selection and organization. Interpretation must be grounded in accuracy. If we acknowledge the primacy of interpretation ... 15/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 16 ... we can meet head-on the problems of false binaries, having to quote things we know are untrue, inadequate sense-making.
In terms of presentation, Interpretation will have us begin with writing but lead us to images and data-driven revelation. 16/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 17 Some will label interpretation illegitimate, unobjective and other things. But all writing is interpretation. For that matter, all writiing is artifice. As Stuart Adam held years ago, there’s artifice in all journalism. The question is, how accurate and revelatory is it? 17/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 18 So rather than retreating to deep reflective narrative, we need to acknowledge the interpretive news report as the form that most needs analyzing, improving, teaching and promoting. “What’s *really* happening here and how can it best be reported?” Is our basic query. 18/x

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope 19 What I’ve outlined is what I really believe will redeem and renew journalism’s craft and purpose - so crucial not only to democratic rule but to everyone’s emancipation from ignorance, superstition and falsehood. 19/19

@CJR @mathewi @kylepope @threadreaderapp unroll pls & tks