The Argumentative Voice: A lecture by Bloomberg Opinion Columnist Andy Mukherjee on March 8, 2021

You don’t have to borrow anybody else’s idiom to make it.

This was Andy Mukherjee’s simple advice to the aspiring writers at the Asian College of Journalism.

The Bloomberg Opinion columnist gave the students tips on how to write a column well. He told them never to make an uninteresting claim in an editorial, and to go out on a limb only if they believe in it and can back it up. Even then, they could go wrong, he cautioned.

He gave the budding scribes a window into his writing process, highlighting that he’s an “argumentative voice” that tells upfront what is happening, or what will or should happen. 

Mukherjee told the students to give evidence through data, history, anecdotes or a combination of all three before handling the main objections to the thesis. Circling back from where you started is important before you end the column, he said.

The columnist also urged the student journalists to read across the spectrum, suggesting authors such as Malcolm Gladwell, V.S. Naipaul and Ghazala Wahab.