“But here’s the secret. The smartest people on the radio are dumb. Or not dumb exactly, but they’ve realized that the smartest thing you can do sometimes is admit that you don’t understand something.”

Give In To Your Inner Dummy: Jonathan Menjivar, who used to work here at Fresh Air and now works as a producer at This American Life, explaining one of public radio’s deepest, darkest secrets. (via nprfreshair)

This is one of the hardest things to do in journalism, but to me it’s by far the most important. Nobody wants to come across as someone who “doesn’t get” it in an interview situation; it’s natural and human to play along when talking to sources. But one of the best bits of journalism on the past decade, TAL’s “The Giant Pool of Money,” came about in large part because Alex Blumberg had the courage to say “I don’t understand how this is possible” when every news report was telling him that it was entirely rational that home values were increasing at a record pace. 

(via nprfreshair)

Notes

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  9. chqdaily reblogged this from nprfreshair and added:
    Alan Alda touched on this in his conversation with Roger Rosenblatt...Chq last season.
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    The first step is admitting you don’t know.
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    This is one of the hardest things...do in journalism, but to me it’s by far the most...
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