Refocusing on the facts

and the terrible but necessary fear of getting them wrong

Today’s issue is a republished essay from January. If you’re a paid subscriber, you may have seen it before. But as the year winds down, I wanted to unlock some of these to share more broadly. I hope you enjoy.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, and would like to read more essays like this one in 2022, now is a great time to upgrade. Subscriptions to One More Question are 40% off!

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You’ve heard it said that “truth is hard to swallow.”

Facts, on the other hand, ought to go down like water.

When I drove to Southern Oregon last month to interview farmers on the water crisis plaguing the region, I felt uneasy about my grasp on the facts. I’m not an expert in water policy or agriculture or drought. I’m not from the region. I read some news articles on what’s been happening in the recent fight over water allocations, but I did not understand how they are determined, or why famers and members of local tribes have walked away from attempts to find middle ground. I do not know if a middle ground exists.

I also do not know if I am the best person to write this story. (I am almost certainly not.)

But I do know it was assigned to me, and that means I have a responsibility to the facts of the matter. I know that I wrote a version of this story that no one else has written, and that it will fit into the bigger picture, providing facts and perspectives that hopefully contribute to a more complete version of the truth.

A fishing hut on the banks of the Klamath River.

Going in, I also knew that it was all very complicated, and that a lot of emotions were involved. When that’s the case, I think it’s best to start with the people who know the situation best—and then confirm the facts from there.

So I started each interview by acknowledging that I was just beginning to wrap my head around the situation, and that I was there to hear their side of the story.

One cattle rancher told me he went to school with many of the tribal members who were now on the opposite side of this water fight. And that now they won’t look at him when they pass in the grocery store.

It would be difficult if not impossible to confirm whether or not that is a fact. But it seemed to be a true part of his experience—losing community, feeling that division between himself and those who disagree with him.

The rancher told me his house contained some of the wood from the first structure built on the property by his great-great-grandparents, who were the first settlers to homestead land in the region. He showed me the beams with great pride. It’s the only home he knows. The only work he knows. He has evidence of the land belonging to his family for a century and a half. But the truth is, he doesn’t know if his kids will want to keep it.

“People are leaving,” he told me. For now, he’s still here.

He wanted me to know the truth he saw when he looked out at the land he calls home: that his roots go deep and he’s doing his best to stay grounded. But he needs more water to keep his business running.

There is another side to that truth, of course. There are the experiences of the great-great-grandparents of the tribal members he went to school with, which have a great impact on the truth. They were likely here long before the rancher’s family was given rights to 160 acres of land by the federal government’s Homestead Act of 1862, which granted ownership based on evidence of improvement. Those improvements looked one way to settlers and to the government who gave them the land. But that same evidence likely wouldn’t have registered as “improvements” to those who called the land home for hundreds of years prior, before they were forced out by homesteaders.

The construction of a house is a fact. But whose home is it? That’s harder to prove.

I walked away from each interview with a heavy heart for the plight of the farmer.

But I had to keep reminding myself that I only had perspectives. I was gathering experiences and quotes and color. It’s so easy to get lost in that. And it’s so much of what makes a good story—which makes it temping to follow it deeper and deeper into one side. But I had to keep going back to the facts.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get comments from tribal members—evidence of how much I don’t know, still.

So I went back to the facts.

Here is one: The tribe did not wish to comment on this article.

Another fact: Farmers in the water region I wrote about received about half of the water they are typically allocated to keep their crops and livestock alive. That decrease in water availability has presented serious challenges.

And another: I am often scared I will get something wrong—and that is probably a good thing.

And another: The facts tell one story. But you almost never have all of them, so you almost never have the whole story.

And one more: That’s generally ok—as long as you acknowledge the missing pieces.

When I got back home to Portland, I started with the facts that I could verify, and then I filled in the piece with the stories I was told, while trying to leave room for the fact that this story is incomplete. This one particular story is about the farmers I met and their experiences during a very challenging year. Within the limits of time and money and perspective, that was what I could offer.

I think there are two big fears that haunt us, as writers.

1. Getting something wrong.

2. Having nothing to say.

Those fears are necessary. They keep us searching. But the fear can be relieved to some degree when we get back to the facts. Keep it simple. Start with what we know to be true based on reliable sources that we check and double check—and then ask questions from there. The more we check and double check our facts, the less we need to worry about getting something wrong. (Although of course, it’s still possible.) And the more time we spend with the facts, the more confident we’ll feel in connecting the dots and writing something that hasn’t been written before.

Writing is a dance between facts and perspective that hopefully leads us to truth.

Of course, we all know that facts aren’t always simple or obvious. That’s why writing and journalism require a certain set of skills in collecting and interpreting the facts. They certainly don’t always go down like water. People choke on them, dispute them, manipulate them, shape and color them, distort and deny them. But we must keep going back to them and verifying.

We’ve seen disputes over facts a lot in recent years. We’ve seen “facts” divide a nation.

In talking to the my sources for this story, I saw that division.

One of them told me he does not think COVID-19 is a very big deal. He did not like that I was wearing a mask, and several times asked me to take it off.

Another asked me if Portland is "still burning.” Which, by my interpretation, it never was.

And then another one admitted that he can’t possibly understand the protests that happened in Portland last summer. And likewise, he wishes that people in Portland didn’t assume to understand what was going on down here.

So often, the facts become more complicated than we want them to be. They change. They evolve. They get called into question. They solidify for some while turning to dust for others.

But they are what we have, and the more we keep looking for them and verifying them and asking questions to uncover more, the closer we get to something that feels right.

That’s all to say, question the facts and handle them with care.

Here is another one: Facts do exist. Often they are very simple.

It is 12:07 PST when I type this sentence. I am sitting at my desk. I have been working on this newsletter for three hours. I am unsure if I am effectively communicating the essence of what I’m trying to get at here. I am hungry.

And a truth: Stories are never simple. That’s why we keep telling them.