Answering the Other Side: Steelmanning and Interrogatories

The fastest way to lose a persuadable reader is to argue against a cartoon. If your piece says the council raised rates "for no reason at all," and the reader's cousin works for the water department and knows the main line on Fifth Street burst twice last winter, you are done. Everything else you wrote is now suspect.

So before you publish, you go find the best argument against you and you answer it.

Straw man, steelman

A straw man is the opponent's argument made weak on purpose so it falls over when you poke it. "The council thinks residents are a piggy bank." Nobody on the council thinks that, or at least nobody said it, and every reader who has met a council member knows it.

A steelman is the reverse. You state the other side's case the way its smartest defender would. Then you answer that version. If you win against the steelman, you have actually won. If you only beat the straw man, the people you most needed to convince saw you dodge.

Where to find their best case

You do not have to guess. Public bodies usually write down their reasons.

• The staff memo in the agenda packet, explaining why the item is recommended.
• Public statements: the mayor's newsletter column, a press release, comments at the meeting.
• Consultant reports and audits the decision relied on.
• Ask them. Email the official, state the claim you plan to make and ask for their side. Give a real deadline, a few business days. Quote the answer fairly, or report that they did not reply. Lesson 5 explains why this is also your best protection.

Concede, then hold your ground

You can steelman and still win. Most opposing arguments are partly right. Your job is to grant the true part out loud, then show why your claim survives it.

Look at what the strong answer did. It agreed with the true part, showed the writer did the homework, and moved the fight onto ground the council cannot defend from the record. That is much harder to brush off than "cash grab."

The Interrogatories device

Jeff ends his own advocacy articles with a section he calls Interrogatories: the hardest questions and attacks opponents of his position will raise, each followed by a full answer. Borrow it. Here is what it does for you:

• It shows readers you are not hiding from the hard parts.
• It hands supporters ready answers when they argue about your piece at the coffee shop.
• It forces you to find the weak spots before your opponents do.

A reader Q&A is different. Q&A answers the curious reader ("When does the new rate take effect?"). Interrogatories answer the hostile one ("Isn't this just sour grapes from someone who lost a council race?"). Many pieces carry both.

How to build the list

1. Write down every attack you can imagine. Be mean. Use the official's voice, the voice of their loudest supporter, the voice of a skeptical neighbor who agrees with nobody.
2. Add any argument from the staff memo or public statements that your piece has not already answered.
3. Pick the 5 to 10 hardest. Not the easiest. If a question makes your stomach drop a little, it goes on the list.
4. Write a full answer for each. Use evidence from your table. Concede where true.
5. Phrase each question the way an opponent would actually say it, tone and all.

What a good answer looks like

Notice the first answer concedes a lot. That is fine. The claim was never "council members should be paid nothing." The claim was that they hid it. Good interrogatories keep you honest about which claim you are actually making.

When the answer hurts

Sometimes you write a hard question and the honest answer damages your argument. Do not drop the question. Your choices:

• Narrow the claim. If it turns out the pay raise was announced in the newsletter after all, the claim shrinks from "hid it" to "passed it without discussion." Still a real piece. Smaller, and true.
• Kill the piece. If the honest answer guts the claim entirely, you just saved yourself a public correction. That is a win, even if it does not feel like one.

Writers who quietly delete the question they cannot answer usually meet it again, in a letter to the editor, with their name in the first line.