Oregon Coast abstract landscape photograph near Newport and Depoe Bay.
Stories rule. Not in the sense of them being great, which they often are. Stories rule because they are what pique our interest. My story, your story, our friends’ stories, our family stories.
Each is important, and each is in need of validation.
And those stories are also utterly unrepresentative of what actually is. Stories attract us because the good ones capture our interest and relate to us on visceral levels. We are story seekers, story tellers and story makers.
(The Public Relations Society of America even offers teleseminars on how to better tell your story, presumably to better capture the interest of audiences.)
Yet stories are only small, albeit powerful, parts of a larger picture. Collections of strong anecdotes, while gaining much of our attention, really tell little when compared with, say a strong statistical analysis about a phenomenon. Such analyses coupled with peer-review are designed to strip away the inherent biases we each hold so that phenomenon are viewed more objectively.
Therein lies the news-reporting paradox. News is meant to be transmitted as objective; yet, the foundation of journalism is in story telling, an inherently unreliable way to communicate credible information, despite best intentions.
Which would you rather read in your local newspaper – a conservative (as in cautious, not political) and thorough research-based analysis, or a cute or emotive anecdote? We know what sells, so we already know the answer to that question.
The problem rests with assumptions behind anecdotes, which is that their inherent attraction also translates to objective reality. This is so profound that far more people make careers in popular writing than in the research fields. It is also so prevalent that there is outward hostility toward research that contradicts what is so emotionally powerful.
Anecdotes are indeed an important part of the larger story. At the same time, the gravity toward them is assumed with far more weight than truly deserved – especially if truth-seeking is the overall intent.
Final Spin
1 year ago
Sure you’re right, BUT…
As you recognize, a story well told is a powerful way to describe reality, to teach or to convince. For reporters and flacks, just like prophets and grandpas, it’s a way to connect your audience with the message, make it real (less abstract anyway…). History is best taught through stories, why not the present?
The problem is truth, in storytelling just as in statistical analysis. Like a strong peer-reviewed study, a good story is one that brings new or better understanding. Our responsability (ours as flacks just as much as the reporters’) is to understand the data, then find or weave a story that illustrates it.
Of course, more often than not, this process is reversed: we find a compelling story to tell the public, then find whatever scrap of fact is on hand to back it up.
Actually, I recently argued that presenting the cold, hard facts to the public without weaving a story from them is bad, lazy PR: http://finalspin.wordpress.com/2008/07/19/death-by-the-numbers/.
One last point, if you will: there would be a lot less employment in “popular writing” if the field researchers could write in a way that people would understand.
bconrad
1 year ago
Well said. Thanks. Of course I too am a story teller — at the same time, I recognize the limits to being one.
Conversely, as you mention, presenting dry data won’t get very far if not presented well. This is something I often get tasked to do, which is one of my favorite challenges and something I am grateful to be able to make a living doing.
I actually wrote a term paper about the topic of communicating complex information and how the ingredients for misinformation begin with scientists, then journalists who report on the information and finally by the consumers of the information. We all play a role.
My favorite reads are those by the scientists who can write well: Franz de Waal, Steven Pinker and Michael Shermer come to mind.
Thanks again for the comment.
The Good, the Bad, the Storyteller « Final Spin
40 years ago
[...] I really like Bob Conrad’s blog (The Good, the Bad, the Spin), including this latest post on the abusive use of the anecdote in journalism (and PR?). The things is, as I wrote before, I [...]