When I majored in Journalism in college, professors taught us to get "both sides" of a story.
Forty years ago, we didn't have the benefit of the Information Superhighway. FOIA and Sunshine Laws could only be described as fledgling. Thus, reporters had to rely on "both sides" as we tried to piece together accurate stories for our newspapers.
I then read a Journalism book that discarded the "both sides" approach to Journalism that often obfuscated the truth. Instead, it said reporters should focus on digging through the layers of a story to "get as close to the truth as possible."
I think about "digging through the layers" often in my role as an Information Professional.
Frankly, we can't always find a definitive answer or solution to a question or problem posed by our clients. We can, however, dig through the layers of today's modern resources to get as close to a specific answer or solution as possible for you and your organization.
That process often looks at "all sides" of a question or problem, but with the Internet's troves of data and information, a willingness to pursue offline and not just online sources, and a dogged determination to weed out the biased / unreliable / false information that litters the Internet, we can almost always reach more conclusive, actionable answers than "he said / she said".
Remember my foray into cold weather grilling last week? The main question I attempted to answer involved my perception that winter grilling had increased in the last 10 years.
I could not show a precise percentage for an increase as the surveys I looked at each had different percentages, but the trends led me to reasonably conclude that cold weather grilling has increased by at least 4 percent to 7 percent since 2011 and represented a potential off-season sales opportunity for the grilling industry.
On occasion, we will run into bigger road blocks.
There is a perception among many locals in our beach resort area that the off-season population has increased during COVID with people moving here from the cities and suburbs to the less crowded beaches.
Proving that, however, has been difficult as data that directly attributes the visible increases in off-season population (more crowded roads, shops, etc.) to a COVID Migration has been elusive.
Some locals believe the increase stems from families moving to the beach and relying on remote learning during the height of COVID. Others think it could just be the continuing increase in "Boomers" retiring to their beach homes since the 2010s. There is more data to support the latter than the former.
As an Information Professional, I will let you know when I believe I have gotten as close to the truth as possible for your assignment. You can then decide if it's worth it to continue digging or stop and deliver to you what I have discovered.
And remember, sometimes, not finding something can be revealing in its own way.
I am Eric Magill, an Information Professional. To see what I can dig up for you beyond the Internet's often inaccurate information, Contact me for credible, up-to-date, proprietary, research-driven answers and solutions to the questions and problems your public or private sector organization faces. You can also request an online meeting with me.