Chip's Writing Lessons #76

Newsletter

• Writers Speak | Anne Tyler on transparency in writing

• Interview | 4 Questions with Patrick Beach

• Craft Lesson | Bothsidesism

• Book World | Preorders and Promos

• Help Royal Hospitallers save lives in Ukraine

WRITERS SPEAK

“What I hope for from a book—either one that I write or one that I read—is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.”

- Anne Tyler

INTERVIEW | 4 QUESTIONS WITH PATRICK BEACH

Patrick Beach is a journalist, uncredentialed historian and author of “A Good Forest for Dying” (Doubleday, 2004) and co-author of the upcoming “Smithsonian American Table (Smithsonian-Harcourt, March 2023). He has worked for The Des Moines Register, Austin American-Statesman, Texas Monthly, GQ, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, The History Channel and other publications. He’s won a few journalism awards but not the only one that matters. He lives in Austin, Texas, where he is working on his guitar face.

What's the most important lesson you've learned as a writer?

As a wise Chip once put it, “Lower. Your. Standards.” Nora Roberts says the same thing: If there’s nothing on the page there’s nothing that can be fixed and improved upon. On the other hand, sometimes stalling isn’t stalling — it’s thinking of a more original way to say something. Also, I write from a selfish-in-a-good way perspective: If what I put on the page pleases me there’s a chance readers may feel the same.

What has been the biggest surprise of your writing life?

That anyone thinks I know what I’m doing. I’m not being glib here. The little voice in your brain that says “I’m a fraud” never goes away.

If you had to use a metaphor to describe yourself as a writer, what would it be?

When it comes to long-form I always describe it as chowing down on one of those 10-foot sub sandwiches: You do it one bite at a time. So I guess that makes me a competitive eater of sorts.

What's the best piece of writing advice anyone ever gave you?

Ira Glass said whatever your creative pursuit you have to do a lot of it — and likely be willing to suck — before you come up with anything good. Vaguely related is Hank Stuever’s observation that you’ve got to woodshed your scales before you can try jazz improvisation.

CRAFT LESSON | BOTHSIDESISM

“I want to get both sides of the story.” That’s a line reporters often use to get a comment on an issue under debate. You’ve probably used it yourself to try to convince sources to cooperate.

The sentiment sounds fair, but it can lead to false balance, which gives unsupported points of view the aura of truth and equal time in news stories. Call it, as some do, “bothsidesism.”

The problem reflects an “ingrained journalistic habit that tries mightily to avoid any hint of reporting bias,” conservative scholar Norm Ornstein wrote in The Atlantic. “The reflexive ‘we report both sides of every story,’ even to the point that one side is given equal weight not supported by reality.”

WHEN TWO SIDES TAKE CENTER STAGE

Consider climate change. 

Since the early 2000s, a consensus has existed in the scientific community that global warming is a human-made phenomenon, caused by burning fossil fuels. 

Yet a minority of voices —academics, scientists, politicians and business people known as “climate contrarians”—who reject that conclusion— were featured in 49% more media articles than climate scientists between 2000–2016, according to a 2019 study in Nature Communications. 

Considerable column inches and air time were also devoted in 2003 to those who maintained the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine given to infants and children caused autism, even though a study in the British medical journal The Lancet reported that “almost all scientific experts rejected the claim of a link.” 

By then, however, “most people wrongly believed that doctors and scientists” were equally divided over the vaccine’s safety. More than half of those surveyed assumed that because both sides of the debate received equal media coverage, there must be equal evidence for each,” the study found.

An anti-vaccine movement, which thrives in today’s Covid-19 pandemic, was born.

Getting both sides of a story may sound like the fair approach, but in the end, false balance, at the expense of truth, can deceive the public and is a prime factor behind the partisan divide that has split America. Bothsidesism can lead to headlines that give even more unearned credence to views with little evidence, which are then circulated widely on social media.

 FIGHTING BACK

• Assess the evidence presented by all sides. Checking doesn’t necessarily mean including every point of view in the story, but recognizing false balance should be a vital part of the reporting process.

• Newsworthy examples, like the 2022 Canadian trucker “Freedom Convoy” protest against vaccine mandates must be covered, but put in context—organizers included far-right activists—and not sensationalized.  If a point of view isn’t solid, resist the impulse to include it, or, as the media generally does with former President Donald J. Trump’s assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from him, identify it as unsupported by the facts. 

THE BOOK WORLD | PREORDERS AND PROMOS

Hooray! At long last, the Kindle version of my new book, 33 Ways Not To Screw Up Your Journalism, is now available on Amazon for pre-order with June 16 the date you will get it on your reading device. You can order it here.

For just $4.99, this succinct, authoritative survival manual delivers 33 tools, values and techniques that will help any journalist, no matter their level of experience, better their craft at a time when democracy has never been in more need of principled, quality reporting.

It’s “excellent for journalists of all ages and experience,” according to Dan Rather, one of my heroes.

The paperback edition will also be available June 16, though, as you’ll see on Amazon, I’ve created a kind of “stealth launch” in advance of the date that enables you to get the print copy in your hands earlier than that.

Whichever version you choose, here are some potential gift ideas:

• A Father’s Day gift for the reporter or editor in your life

• A Juneteenth present for an aspiring journo or a veteran in need of a boost

• An order for your entire newsroom to Celebrate LGBTQ Pride Month

• And yourself, of course

If you do buy the book, I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d leave an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads. These provide “social proof”—people actually buy and read it—and tickle Amazon’s algorithms that encourage the online seller to prominently display the book.

PROMOS

What’s really cool about the changes in today’s publishing model is that authors are able to come up with and implement their own promotional ideas.

For graphically challenged me, that meant plugging into the gig economy of web designers with a referral from my friend Dawn Kristy, whose essential book, 33 Ways Not To Screw Up Cybersecurity, comes out the same day as mine. For $140, Ariba Dalal in British Columbia, Canada created and did multiple revisions on banners for my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn pages until they popped.

Here’s the Twitter banner she created, adding a cool ticking clock for the release date.

Ariba’s day job is actually website design and development with specialization in Wordpress customization. “I work with diverse clients across the globe - businesses, charities, malls, schools and even a whale-watching company!” she told me. “Graphic design is my hobby and an off-shoot of my day job,” which was a boon for me. If you’re interested in her excellent skills, her email is ariba@qddm.ca.

Thank you, Ariba!

Help Royal Hospitallers save lives in Ukraine

A grateful shout-out to my generous readers. A donation of $400 has been made to Royal Hospitallers, Ukrainian's brave volunteer paramedic battalion that saves lives every day. Half of the gift came from a month's royalties donated from sales of my Four Questions interview collection "Writers on Writing," the rest of which I matched. Please continue to help here!

BEFORE YOU GO

If there’s one person you think would benefit from the interviews, craft lessons, writing tips, and more that appear every two weeks in this free newsletter, please nominate them to subscribe @ chipscanlan.substack.com

If you’d like to tangibly support Chip’s Writing Lessons and my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Once a week, these members receive an extras package featuring fresh interviews with leading writers and editors, excerpts from my books of writing advice, excerpts from a memoir in progress, more inspirational quotes, glimpses into the world of publishing, coaching tips and more recommended readings and listening options.

Thanks.

NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

Writers on Writing: Inside the lives of 55 distinguished writers and editors 

“By asking four questions to 55 of our finest writers and editors, Chip Scanlan has hosted one of the greatest writing conferences you will ever attend." - Roy Peter Clark, The Poynter Institute, “Writing Tools” 

"A marvelous book for writers, people who have a passion for writing, or simply, who want to become writers. Yet what strikes me about this book is that it is not just for writers only." - The Blogging Owl

AND

Writers on Writing: The Journal

Available on Amazon and through a local independently-owned bookstore @ writersonwritingbooks.com

33 Ways Not To Screw Up Your Journalism. Now available for preorder for June 16 release date.

chipscan@gmail.com | +1-727-366-8119

Thanks for reading. See you in two weeks.

May your writing go well.

Chip