Journalists constantly wrestle with “dangerous half-knowledge”. Some mask it with over-the-top arrogance, others with scattered bits of trivia. Even as a specialist journalist, there’s always a knowledge gap that the real experts spot immediately.
Other journos work hard to upgrade their half-knowledge to three-quarter knowledge. The feeling never changes: When will I be exposed as a fraud? I’ve written before about imposter syndrome.
Today I listened to an Australian politician on the radio who didn’t answer a single question concretely. Not even the follow-ups from the presenter. Like jelly you can’t nail to the wall.
The presenter, an older and very experienced journalist, kept pressing. But the politician was slippery, wouldn’t commit to details or any actual statements. For me, that’s always the signal they’re not playing with open cards and hiding something. Maybe they don’t know either and are masking their dangerous half-knowledge.
As fascinating as this journalistic cat-and-mouse game is, ultimately listening becomes a complete waste of time.
Expert knowledge: What lies beneath—and deeper?
Experts are having their moment. We have experts on everything. But what’s actually behind it? Just half-knowledge or more?
To find out, we need to crack the “illusion of explanatory depth”. If you’re an expert on something yourself, ask whether you can coherently explain the underlying concepts and connections. Ideally, you can handle three increasingly deep follow-up questions.
Sure, knowledge branches out as you go deeper. But a real expert who truly knows their stuff either digs up plenty of knowledge or—and this is also a good sign—honestly admits they don’t know something right now.
In contrast, you should get suspicious when your conversation partner has instant answers for everything. Because maybe it’s just a rehearsed platitude and not actually an answer to your question.
To be sure, you can ask for an example or find out what their statements are based on: Where do you get your information, what’s your foundation? You can also pick out one aspect and have them explain it more deeply: Please explain this aspect in more detail, how exactly does x, y and z work?
I’ve seen many pretty confident types leave the room grinding their teeth.
Journalists love asking politicians for exact numbers. They want to show whether politicians are close to the topic or not. We don’t need to do that in our little exercise. It’s enough to see or hear when your counterpart starts drowning.
Do they waffle through it (not good) or do they say they don’t know (better)? And how do they answer the follow-up: Where would you need to ask or research to find out? Hint: “Google it” isn’t a sufficient answer.
Originally published auf Deutsch at reinergaertner.de (est. 1997, older than Google). AI helped translate this. I helped introduce the errors.