Ever heard someone say to the writer of a
piece that his work says more about him than the subject about whom he's
writing? If you haven't, this is a time to get a sense of how such remark is
sometimes earned by writers, even ordinary laymen, who can be so absorbed by
the gathering around them, they can't see past it.
To see that, imagine you graduated from
high school, and were accepted by an out-of-town university offering a program
in journalism. It is early morning, and you hop into the car that your parents
gave you on graduation, and hit the road on your way to the university. You
stop at a restaurant near a small town to have breakfast. Two men at the table
near you are talking loudly, and you instantly figure they must be farmers
raising pigs because their language does not go beyond the pool of pig manure
with which they must deal all day long … day after day.
You get back to your car and drive a few
more hours. It is now early afternoon, and you stop at a restaurant at the
outskirt of the city to which you're going, and visit the restroom where you
wash up, and go to the diner for a snack. You sit at a table near to which two
women are talking loudly. You figure they must be commodity traders because
their language, though varied and touching on several topics, remains replete
with images about the futures and the weather conditions that can alter them.
You get back to your car and drive to the
university where you'll be spending the next few years. You go to the
administrative building where they give you the key to the room where you'll
reside. You take your stuff there, take a shower, take a short nap, get up and
go around the campus to see what's there. It is early evening, and you come to
a small building with a sign at the door that says “Come in you're invited”.
You walk into a common room containing
tables around which sit a number of students, and perhaps a few professors. You
see other students come into the room and sit randomly at any table while other
students migrate from one table to another. You spot an empty chair at one
table and go sit there. Moments later a student addresses an older person: Tell
me this, professor, how can I decide whether to aim for a multi-disciplinary
kind of education or whether I should aim to specialize in one field?
The professor says there is a need for
both in a modern economy. If you'll do pure mathematics or get into high energy
physics or astronomy, the more highly specialized you are, the better you'll
serve the field. But if you'll be making things, your knowledge base must be
rounded. You'll do that by adding experience to your theoretical knowledge.
Another student says: I want to design cars. And the professor says: You'll
need to learn the theory in the classroom. But in the same way that you can't
be a good driver without actually driving a car, you won't be a good designer
without spending years designing cars.
The discussion goes on in this vein for a
while, touching on several professions. So you decide to break in and ask a
question: What about commodity traders? What do they need to know? The
professor responds that very few people trade for their account using their own
money. Most traders work for a brokerage house handling the accounts of
clients. Traders must be versed in economics and the factors that can affect
the price of the commodity of their specialty. This requires a vast array of
interdisciplinary knowledge.
Okay, you say, what about raising pigs?
The professor answers: Like any musician, farmers, miners, and journeymen in
every trade learn their profession by practicing it. Like a violin player that
stops playing for a time, a journeyman that stops practicing his trade gets
rusted up. You interrupt the professor saying you have one more question.
Shoot, he says. And you confess: I want to be a journalist. What should I know?
The professor says this is probably the most interdisciplinary profession you
can get into.
You ask again: What should I know? And the
professor answers: There is much that you'll have to learn by experience. But
if I must give an advice for starter, here are two rules: (1) Refrain from
speculating, and (2) do not editorialize by using adjectives that enforce a
point of view rather that clarify the situation. If you violate these rules,
your credibility goes down to zero, and you'll find it hard to regain the trust
of the readers.
You go back to your room, turn on the
computer and look up the daily publications. You come to an article titled:
“Iran is trying to cover up its internal crisis,” written by Benny Avni and
published on February 26, 2019 in the New York Post. The adjective “trying” in
the title intrigues you, and so you read the article to see if what the
professor was saying applies here. You encounter abundant speculation backed by
adjectives galore. What follows is a condensed version of the passage that
contain speculations:
“For the Iranian regime, the internal
scrambling started in the middle of the night. How can it pretend to be united
when one of its men quit so publicly? Iranians are suffering. More frequently
than ever, they protest. Regime insiders are turning on each other.
Factionalism is rising more than ever before. Zarif's political star is dimming
in Tehran, and it surely reflects the internal strife the regime has
increasingly faced. Lately Zarif has been more hawkish and seemed increasingly
tense. The usually cordial Zarif angrily pushed back. The regime is clearly
having difficulty dealing with it”.
And what follows is a condensed version of
the passages that contain the editorializing adjectives:
“Zarif's resignation may have been a mere
cry for help. Regime insiders are turning on each other. As for Zarif, he
apparently wasn't informed of Assad's visit to Tehran. Some Iranian sources
speculate that was the last straw, or maybe it was a protest to stress his
relevance; it's anyone's guess. An Israeli-based broadcaster noticed that
lately Zarif has been more hawkish than ever. His differences with the Guards
were more over style. Let's amp up the pressure. The regime is having
difficulty dealing with it … to our good”.