How to write with authority

For his anniversary piece on the collapse of Lehman Bros., Stevenson Jacobs of The Associated Press wrote about what hasn’t changed:

That Wall Street is making money again in essentially the same ways that thrust the banking system into chaos last fall is reason for concern on several levels, financial analysts and government officials say.

Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg of NPR reported a “Morning Edition” segment on how difficult it is to merge regulatory agencies – although virtually everyone acknowledges there are too many financial regulators:

Economists say this kind of problem stems from regulatory arbitrage. When more than one regulator oversees the same kind of activity, financial firms find ways to play one off against the other. It's like what every 4-year-old has figured out — if Mommy won't let you, maybe Daddy will. Or worse, if Mommy thinks Daddy is watching you, and Daddy thinks Mommy is watching you, then you can get away with anything.

Both pieces illustrate the in-depth reporting that allows the authors to write with authority.

Today’s Tip: To write with authority, report, report, report.

“When you write with authority -- with a knowledge of your topic and an awareness of how it connects to other topics -- your storytelling becomes credible,” according to this Poynter Online report of author Susan Eaton’s presentation at the 2002 Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism.

Eaton notes that context plus crystallization equals authority. Crystallization is “the art of finding and presenting the person, place, or moment that somehow exemplifies your broader theme,” according to the report.

Another key to writing authoritatively is to stick to active “Anglo-Saxon” verbs and avoid the passive voice, according to this brief video of Alan Pike, teaching at Cornell University.

The best views aren't just from the penthouse

Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace offered a segment, carried on many public radio stations, about the financial crisis that, as one listener commented, “brought the issues to a more understandable, personal level.”

Today’s Tip: Add a micro dimension to make macroeconomic stories more useful for your audience.

For this Lehman Bros. anniversary piece, Kai focused on people at both ends of the financial spectrum: Millicent “Mama” Hill, whose Los Angeles home was foreclosed upon after she took out a subprime loan she couldn’t repay, and John Chrin, a former Wall Street executive turned college instructor. Then, to provide context, he added in experts on the financial crisis, the psychology of financial decision-making and the financial trust index.

“Excellent, excellent piece,” wrote listener Zaid Hassan of Austin, Texas. “Spellbinding to be reminded that, in the end, it really is just a piece of paper,” Hassan said, referring to the central thesis of the report: Without trust in the financial system, a dollar is really just a piece of paper.