Chapter 9 - Fast-Track To Expertise
Merely having information does not mean having expertise: it requires knowing the significance of the information, what it means and how it can be used, that makes a person an expert.
This is a common mistake in the information technology industry: companies stuff databases full of information on the premise that it gives them power, and as a result they have lots of data that profits them nothing. In that sense, the data is not valuable at all in the absence of a query that dredges through the information to arrive at something meaningful.
In the same way, an "expert" is not a person who has all the facts - but a person who knows the right questions to ask.
Vetting the Source
It terms of interrogation, the process of identifying an individual who has information is relatively simple, but it is rather more complicated to find someone that can tell you what that information means.
Getting to the leading expert on any given subject is often impossible. If you want investment advice, likely the best person to ask is Warren Buffet. It's also likely he won't take your call. If you want to know about nuclear physics, the best person to ask is Albert Einstein, but he won't take your call either. You often have to rely on lesser experts to piece together what you need.
Interviewing multiple sources is a common tactic, to determine where they agree or disagree - where everyone gives you the same answer, you can be fairly confident in its accuracy.
Be Like a Skeptic, but Don't Be a Skeptic
"Don't believe everything you hear" is excellent advice to interrogators. Even when people intend to be completely honest, they may not know or remember all the facts, and are prone not only to confabulate but to be defensive of their confabulations.
But don't doubt everything you hear, either. Consider that the United States government was warned by the British, the Dutch, Australia, Peru, Korea and the Soviet Union that a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was coming. But the US leadership simply refused to believe Japan had the capability or desire to do such a thing, based on their own information.
Questioning Like an Analyst
Whenever a tragedy takes the media by storm, the accounts in the news are always specious, and are quite often found out to be dead wrong. In their rush to be first to tell the story, journalists tell the wrong story. It's not that they make up the facts, but that they gather information in a reckless manner and are not skeptical enough about what they discover, rushing unverified stories to press.
A careless press requires a careful public - one who doubts what they hear until there is sufficient consideration and corroboration.
As an interrogator, the author has found it to be a good mental exercise to question the media: identifying the holes in the stories where essential details are missing and where the reporters seem to be jumping to a conclusion based on scant evidence.
In particular, the news is good at telling what happened. Not so great with the rest of the questions: who, when, why, and how. Weasel-words such as "allegedly" or "supposed" pepper news coverage, and later diminish as the facts become known and the real story is told.
Et Cetera
(EN: This chapter winds down with three or four additional sections that contain anecdotes but do not seem to come to a discernible point.)