You’ll be told: “Everyone knows that” or “This is simply the way things are done”. But do some research and you might discover that things are different.
A teen points to a basket of eggs. (Illustration by News Decoder)
In journalism school we learned that if someone tells you the sky is blue, check for yourself. The lesson was about the need to fact check everything. Don’t accept what people say even if it is something everyone accepts.
I read that this way: Question everything.
Maybe the sky isn’t blue. As I look out my window at the dreary Irish weather, I can tell you that in fact, my sky is gray. It will likely be gray tomorrow. Where I live, if the sky turns blue, that’s news! But it is difficult to argue against accepted wisdom.
Fun facts per Google AI: There are some things you really can’t argue against. Putting your foot into a wet sock, sitting in the middle seat of an airplane and being near someone who has their speakerphone on in public are all annoying experiences.
But most things people widely accept are fair game. Young people do this all the time. They haven’t yet been browbeaten by boss after boss who tells them to just accept the way things are done.
Question the accepted paradigm.
At News Decoder, we ask teens to identify a problem around them and explore it in an article. Often they challenge accepted paradigms. We know that participating in sports is good for you (with the exception perhaps of concussion-causing American football) but one student wanted to know whether sitting on your sofa and watching sports could also be healthy.
Another student wondered whether spending a lot of time studying is healthy and whether you might actually perform better at school by spending less time hitting the books.
A third student questioned the idea that we are social creatures and that being alone is unhealthy. He came to the conclusion that being alone is not the same as being lonely.
And a fourth student questioned the idea that young people should respect their elders. “Shouldn’t respect be earned?” she wondered, and came to the conclusion that everyone should treat people with respect and that means that old people should respect young people, and vice versa.
When a journalist questions the accepted paradigm, the results can be surprising. Stories that surprise the reader are compelling. They make us think.
Proving people wrong
But these stories are often difficult to report. Most people in the United States believe that their one vote won’t really matter in elections. That’s why, historically, only half of all people qualified to vote in midterm elections actually do.
To disprove that, I led a class investigation where we looked at the tabulated results of every election race held in the state of California over 10 years — we’re talking some 11,000 races. We found 46 cases of a candidate or proposition won or lost by a single vote and that meant that in those contests, the individual votes of 45,541 people made the difference. We found many more races decided by margins of 10 and 25 votes.
When you question a solidly held belief people will look at you as if you are crazy or stupid. Of course the sky is blue. Of course spending a lot of time by yourself is bad. Of course being a couch potato isn’t good. Of course one vote in a state of 40 million people won’t matter. What are you thinking?
But if you take the time to do actual research and interview people with actual expertise, you might find out that the accepted wisdom isn’t all that wise.
Doing these types of stories is a bit of a gamble. You might end up having wasted significant time, effort and thought only to discover that things are really the way most people believe. But when it turns out that you were right — that the accepted wisdom is wrong — these stories are deeply satisfying. Who doesn’t like to tell the world that they are wrong?
But solid research is critical. You can’t challenge a belief that is strongly held if you don’t have solid evidence to back up your argument. After reading your story or listening to your podcast you don’t want people to think you are even crazier or more stupid than they thought.
You want them to go: Huh, how about that?
Marcy Burstiner is the educational news director for News Decoder. She is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School and professor emeritus of journalism and mass communication at the California Polytechnic University, Humboldt in California. She is the author of the book “Investigative Reporting: From premise to publication.“