Hey folks!
TL;DR:
I’m really good at research.
Fact checking isn’t a viable career option.
I want to share my research skills and help others learn.
Basic features each post will contain.
Comment with ideas for research/fact checks!
Me
I’ve voraciously consumed information for as long as I can remember, competing in my state’s version of quiz bowl for six years,1 and tracked down random answers as a writer for The 100 Hour Board for three years.2
I also want to make sure that the information I’m learning is correct—or at least as close to accurate as I can get. I will fact check Twitter threads of “facts you’d never believe are true”3 or political statements that seem just a bit off. I’ve been working on fact checking “The Mother Tongue” by Bill Bryson and found five verifiably false facts in the first two pages!4
I love tracking things down, and even a slight “I wonder if this exists” from a friend will send me researching until I can find something remotely helpful.
Careers
Unfortunately, fact checking as a career is extremely hard to get into. It’s generally wrapped up in copywriting, and I don’t have the editing skills that would enable me to succeed in that job. Publishing companies don’t provide fact checkers for non-fiction books, depending on the author to front that cost—or shoulder the blame for inaccuracies. This, then, is the best I can get to providing research and fact checking for people.
Why Substack
I’ve been greatly inspired by a number of podcasts,5 but I'm not going to make my own.6 Writing is an easier medium for me to communicate.
Future Posts
Each post will have:
relevant trigger warnings at the very top. Some topics may involve sensitive subjects, and I want to give you the ability to decide whether or not to engage with those topics. I’ll be trying to keep the titles as trigger-free as possible.
a tl;dr breakdown. Sometimes you don’t really want to know everything about the subject. Sometimes it’s easier to read something when you know where it’s going. I got you.
headings and shorter paragraphs. I type naturally in shorter paragraphs as it is, but it also makes it easier to read.
lots of sources. and footnotes. Like the great Terry Pratchett, I love footnotes; I love textual asides.
an acknowledgement of nuance. Everything is more complex than we give it credit for. Where there are multiple (legitimate) sides, I want to do my best to present them fairly. I want to provide you with the background knowledge and sources that you could use to learn more.
You!
I’m happy to have you here on this research/fact checking journey! Please provide any suggestions of topics you have in comments. They can be recent news or something historical, scientific or frivolous. I’m not going to do your homework for you, but I do want to help you navigate difficult conversations you may have with friends and family.
I also want to acknowledge that I’m going to make mistakes. I’m going to get things wrong here, and when that happens, I want you to let me know.
The End
If you’ve read this far, congrats! Let’s see where this goes.
My team placed 12th at the state tournament one year, and 14th the next year.
Unfortunately, the website no longer exists, though you can find it through the Wayback Machine (fully archived). I answered a lot of very obscure questions and did hours of research. Usually during class time.
Because they generally aren’t, or they’re a lot more complicated than the tweets suggest.
This is the book that originally got me into linguistics, but the claim that “Finnish doesn’t have swear words—they say the equivalent of ‘in the restaurant’ instead” is absolutely ridiculous and was a big clue that not everything in the book could be trusted.
Primarily You’re Wrong About, Maintenance Phase, and If Books Could Kill.
The world doesn’t need another podcast. Though, it probably also doesn’t need another substack.