walls.corpus

By Nathan L. Walls

  • Sunset, Jan. 2, 2021/Williams Township
  • On Bougher Hill/Williams Township
  • Sunrise, Dec. 19, 2020/Williams Township
  • Sunset, Dec. 27, 2020

Why: Analysis is not (necessarily) approval

My last post on the “view from nowhere” and how it relates’s to John Gruber’s writing of Daring Fireball triggered an email from a friend and former coworker, asserting that Gruber was, in fact, an Apple fanboy.

I wrote the following in response, “A lot of what he writes in terms of trying to understand Apple’s behavior and motivation is interpreted as if he wholly approves of their actions. There’s a lot of overlap, certainly, but they are not the same thing.”

I clarified for myself a point broader than the one I was trying to make back to my friend. Frequently, people interpret in-depth analysis of motivation of actions as approval or disapproval. Politics is an easy target, hence why the “view from nowhere” is popular.

For purposes of example, I’ll use sports coverage. A beat writer covers a local team. You follow the team all season. You get to know the players, the arena, the organization. You get to know your fellow writers. You can start to write with authority, on the foundations of your previous reporting, on not only what the team is doing but why. Although what can get enmeshed in debate, why is a far trickier proposition, because its moving beyond strict fact reportage into synthesis and analysis. The writer is trying to explain the motivations behind the actions. This might be less tricky with immediate post-game coverage, but exceptionally so when trying to write about why a team is pursuing a trade, going to fire a coach, seeking a new arena and so on.

It’s very easy for readers to see the writer as a cheerleader if the coverage is “positive” or someone who has it out for the team if the coverage is “negative.” Stipulated, these can be congruent, but they are not causal. It’s trickier for the writer to fully convey a point that comes from an executive’s or player’s thinking and not have the audience associate the writer with that point.

It is all the more difficult for a writer, if she is an independent reporter, to be seen as truly independent, if other writers are not, or are not independent in the same way.