Process Stories

Coming up with a topic every week is more difficult than many might think. Sure, being an unpaid political correspondent is the dream of bloggers everywhere. The perks are tremendous: Casual day is everyday (underwear only acceptable), you can drink on the job (although, I have found you'll need to allow times for re-writes) and then there is the time with the kids. Wait, I don't have any kids. Where did all these kids come from?

Honestly, I try to use credible criteria when I choose what to write about. So, I thought this week I'd lay out the thought process I use when writing this article. It all starts with a little thing I like to call topic selection.

Topic selection usually starts immediately after I finish writing the current article. I scan the papers, internet and television to see what the big stories are along with the current trends and angles that the mainstream media is covering. I then proceed to throw them all out since I'm really not interested in just recycling what is already out there and my ego isn't big enough to think that I've got some sort of insight that Chris Matthews or Sean Hannity haven't already shared.

That's not to say I think they know what they're talking about. In fact, I've found that half the time they seem to kowtow to the guest or the "safe" story of the day. They follow of the old lawyer rule of never asking a question they don't already know the answer to. The end result is that the MSM often just spews the same thing over and over and over again without really digging any deeper in the real issues.

A case in point is that while a few independent and freelance writers have been offering some real in-sight into how the Katrina catastrophe highlights a serious problem with poverty in our society, the MSM folks have focused mostly on what I'm calling "Race and Rebuilding." Some would argue that race and poverty are directly tied together in America. To which I argue that the entire time I was growing up I never heard the term "poor BLACK trash".

At this point, I've gotten way off track, but my topic selection process usually consist of seeing what the MSM is covering and then looking for something that might have been missed, overlooked or just ignored and I've got my topic.

After I've gotten my topic, I do research. Both Lexis-Nexis and Google are invaluable for this. I've got an L-N account from a school I signed up for and never attended a class at, but no one has taken the password or account away, so I'm falling back on the time honored legal premise of "Findersius-Keepersius." I read as much as I can concerning the topic I've selected and make notes on key points that I find interesting or that my alcohol-addled mind deems important.

At this point in the process, I'm easily into my second 12 pack of beer. Being a true American of Gaelic descent, my mind actually gets sharper the more I drink. Well, that might not be true of all Celts, but anyone that has played National Trivia Network with me in a bar can attest to the fact that as the night goes on, I just get better and better.

This is the reason I head down to an undisclosed Irish Pub in the D.C. area for all my background. Why? Because I'm not a real journalist, so I can't get into the Whitehouse press briefings and besides you'd be surprised the kind of stuff a staffer will spill after a few pints. So at the end of the night I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to say about a particular topic and enough background to go on that I don't feel like I'm just making it up.

Then I sit down and start typing. My mind is like a steel trap and I tend to retain an incredible amount of information in this tiny little sponge of mine. So I start typing and work things out in my head as I go. Sometimes I start with a point of view or the facts as I've interpreted them and three quarters of the way through the article, I've decided that my premise was false to begin with. I debate with myself and try and decide if I really buy into the point I'm trying to make.

By now, of course, it is three in the morning and I'm pretty liquored up. My wife says I sound like Golem from Lord of the Rings and after that much beer, I'm probably about as attractive, but she loves me and puts up me. At any rate it takes me anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours to write the finished product and e-mail it to Joel.

So really that is about it. When I get a chance, I add a little humor and I try to make sure that I've provided reliable content. But most of the time, it is all on the fly on a Friday or Saturday night while binge drinking. If you think that is scary, just consider that Ted Kennedy has been writing and voting on legislation in a similar mind state for decades.

Of course, there are those occasional weeks where I'm just too lazy or busy to do all the research and topic selection. These are the times that you fall back on what are called "process-stories". Instead of talking about issues or events you write about the "process" surrounding the issues or events. They are pretty simple to do in a crunch and require very little analytical thought. I'd say about 20 percent of what you see coming out of the MSM fall in this category.

If you're interested to know more about "process-stories," scroll back to the top of this page and begin reading from the beginning. So maybe I am a real journalist after all.

Brock Tanner does his research for this column in his underwear. He can be found throwing half-full beer cans at the television every time a Fox News Alert plays and its Greta Van Susteren talking about someone "missing." Contact him at brocktanner@hobotrashcan.com.