viewpoint Nick Inman calls on columnists to test out their arguments


Make the case against to back up your belief


I


want so much to agree with you. You’re a respected columnist or broadcaster. You have an expert opinion to


pass on. You’ve thought it through and you are giving it me straight. “The UK should leave the EU immediately,” you say, “under any conditions.” “The BBC is biased to the right (or the left).” “Free markets solve all problems.” “Homeopathy is quack medicine that deludes the gullible.” “Journalists should have unrestricted freedom to report what they want for the greater good.” I have an open mind. I’m listening.


But I’m going to think as well, so make it good.


Because you are a journalist, you express yourself well. That’s a given but that’s also what worries me. You need more than a command of words to put forward an argument that shares ideas and moves debate forward. If you don’t apply a little wisdom,


you will be wasting my time and yours. You’ll confirm the prejudices of your friends and drive everyone else away. You only have to look at current politics to see where such polarisation leads. There are formal rules to making a strong point but they all come down to one question you need to ask yourself: what if I am wrong? Before you make the case for your diagnostic or prognostic, you must be able to make the case against. You must anticipate every objection. If you fear this is going to weaken your self-righteousness, your argument is probably no good. If you test your argument, on the other hand, you will almost certainly strengthen it – even if you have to modify it to conform with reality.


“ 8 For all the latest news from the NUJ go to www.nuj.org.uk ” theJournalist | 9


Most columnists don’t seem to want to do this. The commonest mistake I see every day is for a writer to believe his or her beliefs are a true reflection of reality. They are not: we all rely on beliefs but they are never right a priori. As journalists, we are vulnerable to the


idea that an argument has to be all or nothing. We are faithful to the tyranny of the angle because it makes life much less messy. But you must not get suckered into starting with a conclusion and engineering the evidence to justify it. That’s what ideologists do. They can never understand why balanced people question their workings out. One columnist recently went further than this: he gave better evidence against his argument than for it but still managed to reach the conclusion he had chosen. Another easy way


You mustn’t get suckered into starting with a conclusion and engineering the evidence to justify it. That’s what ideologists do


to gain a pyrrhic victory is to lump all your opponents together, like the national science editor who recently assumed that all people who speculate about intelligent design are creationists. Any ludicrous proposition put forward by one


extremist can be assumed to be the opinion of everyone else in the camp. Conversely, you should never assume you speak for anyone other than yourself, let alone everyone else: ‘we-our-us’ is a devious concept that tries to homogenise the opinions of those you consider to have common cause with you.


Many columnists go beyond


certainty to prophecy. They are tempted to predict and even promise the future. ‘If x then y,’ they reason. This has an irresistible logic but it assumes you have all the variables of the universe under control. Nuance, the conditional tense,


tentative speculation, balance and judgment are sadly all becoming lost virtues in a world that just wants to hear ranting and denunciation. Please, if you have space to express


yourself in the media, be aware you enjoy a privileged platform denied to most mortals. Don’t abuse it. Fake news is bad enough but, if we get fake argument as well, we are certainly lost.


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