normative

Good storytelling needs data, time, and magnitude

The difference between good and bad journalism is that bad journalism is storytelling without data, which makes the anomaly seem normal; good storytelling must include time (over what period a change occurred), magnitude, how representative or anomalous it is, and what incentives may have changed the behavior.

normativepending

Speaker

Stephen Dubner

Evidence Quote

storytelling is great; but it's got to have some rigor, and... you've got to show your homework. If I want to tell you a story, and I want you to believe it's true, I need to give you evidence.

Source

Twenty Years of Freakonomics (with Stephen Dubner)EconTalk
Created: 6/13/2026, 12:23:34 AM

My Notes

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