Transforming Opinion Journalism

By Crispin Sartwell

 

Information is collective and cumulative; opinion is always the possession and expression of an individual.  As we re-think the role of opinion journalism in daily newspapers, this must be our axiom.

    The more sets of eyes you can get on a piece of reporting - the more experts you can talk to, the more editors who comb the prose - the better the product, all other things being equal. The more hands you get on an opinion column, however, the blander and more dilute it becomes.

   At the Los Angeles Times, Michael Kinsley is trying to re-think the way the newspaper handles opinion, and he has set off a debate among editors and writers around the country.

    Some of his ideas are extremely sharp. For example, Kinsley has questioned the necessity for an editorial board, a group of editors at each major daily that formulates the "opinions of the institution," and he's questioned the idea of the editorial itself.

     Institutions are not the sorts of things that can literally have opinions, and so the question of whose views the editorials in a daily newspaper express is always a puzzling one. And in fact, of all the opinion writing appearing in any venue, newspaper editorials are the most bland, predictable, and woolly.

     Kinsley's excellent immediate prescription is that at a minimum the members of the board should come out from behind their curtain every so often and speak in their own voices. And the Los Angeles Times will also try to make its editorial page livelier by discussing the editorials of other newspapers.

    On the other hand, Kinsley's concept of a "wikitorial" - an editorial that any reader can edit - is deeply wrong-headed, and it is not surprising that the first experiment ended in disaster after less than two days, as people defaced the writing or posted obscene images.

    The wiki idea of collective authorship is perfect for an encyclopedia, for instance, where the more eyes you have on a set of assertions the closer the approach to the truth. But it's antithetical to the expression of opinion, because it cannot even be used to represent a disagreement. The proper form there would be an open blog in which anyone can comment but no one can edit the comments of others. Many newspapers already have commentary strings in their electronic versions; these should be strengthened and emphasized.

   Here are some other notions to improve opinion journalism in daily papers.

 

(1) Editorials should be signed, even if by the members of a committee. When a newspaper endorses a candidate, for instance, it should try to clarify the question of where the endorsement originates it and how it came to be expressed in the way it is.

 

(2) No newspaper should publish press releases from public, party, corporate, or foundation officials on its opinion pages. Again, institutions do not have opinions. If officials want to get "their" "views" before the public, all they have to do is call a press conference, and if the newspaper wants to know what "they" "think," they can send a reporter to do the interview. The Washington Post is the most egregious case here; every couple of days it features a piece that is collaged from the cliche-ridden speeches written for a high-ranking official by his staff. But virtually every op-ed page in the country follows suit to some extent.

  

(3) Op-ed pages are among the most-read portions of most newspapers; note, for example, what articles readers of the New York Times most frequently e-mail to one another. This should be noted by anyone who wants to improve circulation. Were I editing a daily, I'd be tempted to return to the days of the front-page opinion column, and perhaps go for two or three op-ed pages on the model of the Washington Times (though, idiotically, every column in the Washington Times is conservative).  Such an expansion - which might also encompass letters to the editor - would of course be especially easy in electronic editions.

    

(4) Finally, and for all the same reasons, I'd seek out eccentric, unusual, and highly provocative voices, people who are not out here to serve the agenda of some political party or organization.  The point/counterpoint model is impoverished, and I'd be looking for insult comics, transsexuals, religious fanatics, vegans, illegal aliens, underground rappers, terrorist sympathizers, children, schizophrenics, and endodontists.

 

    At any rate, Kinsley is certainly right about this: it's high time to have this discussion in the most general way, and put all current practices up for grabs. But the answers can follow coherently from the basic principle that every actual opinion is someone's opinion.