Vol. 166: My problem with the Times

Not to mention the Post, the Journal, and the Inquirer

If you ran a newspaper, what would you call the section that contains editorials, op-ed columns, letters to the editor, maybe even editorial cartoons?

The New York Times labels this section “Opinion”— presumably to emphasize that it’s utterly separate from the newsroom, which is strictly (at least in theory) fact-based.

The Wall Street Journal (my erstwhile employer) also dubs this section “Opinion,” adding this elaboration:

“United under the banner ‘free markets, free people,’ The Wall Street Journal Opinion section has long served as a forum for intelligent, thought-provoking commentary. While we aim to persuade, every word we publish is the product of rigorous reporting, research, and debate. We operate with complete independence from the newsroom.”

And the Philadelphia Inquirer (where I contributed a regular op-ed column from 1978 to 1997) calls this section— surprise!— “Opinion.” It adds this proviso:

“The Inquirer offers news, which strives to present unbiased, factual reporting, and opinion, which showcases viewpoints.”

The Washington Post, on the other hand, boldly marches to a different drummer. Instead of calling this section “Opinion,” it labels it “Opinions.”

What’s my problem here? I thought you’d never ask.

The cab driver theory

Return with me to 1969, when I was a young Chicago reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Vermont Royster was the Journal’s legendary editorial page editor. That year Royster paid a rare visit to the paper’s Chicago bureau. On that occasion, he told me what he presumably told every other Journal reporter who crossed his path:

“You can get opinions from any cab driver. What matters is the insight you bring to the reader.”

That perception became my mantra throughout my subsequent career, to wit: Opinions are cheap. The ideal purpose of editorials and columns is not to grind personal axes or serve agendas (no matter how noble) but to serve readers by providing insight, provoking thought, and raising points that deserve exposure, whether or not I personally agree with them.

And you wonder why I cringe when reputable newspapers celebrate a commodity you can get from any cab driver?

(OK, OK— cab drivers no longer speak English. But you get my gist.)

Hearst and Annenberg

To be sure, Royster’s philosophy was discarded at the Journal after he retired two years later, leaving the editorial page (then called “Review & Outlook”) to successors whose priority was not the reader but the promotion of a political agenda. It was almost as if the Wall Street Journal became two separate publications: a professional nonpartisan news report on the outside, and a belligerently partisan vehicle on the inside (one that earned, incidentally, the public censure of the gentlemanly Vermont Royster.)

But most newspapers, then and now, subscribed to the notion of strict separation between the news and editorial pages, out of fear that the views expressed on the editorial page would infect the news section and so damage the paper’s credibility. This was a legitimate concern at a time when press lords like William Randolph Hearst or Robert McCormick or Walter Annenberg used their papers as personal tools to punish their enemies and reward their friends. If you could isolate these megalomaniacs within a single specific page, the theory went, the rest of the paper could be devoted to honest reporting and would be respected as such.

Eventually, some papers expanded the editorial page to a second “op-ed” page. The first to do so may have been the old New York World in the 1920s, where the legendary editor Herbert Baird Swope offered in-house columnists who presented their views on the arts, culture, and the passing scene, in a manner and tone that differed considerably from the rest of the paper. The Chicago Tribune (Robert McCormick’s vehicle) tried a version as early as 1912. The Washington Post publicly referred to its page of commentary opposite the editorial page as the “Op-Ed” page in the 1930s. So did the Los Angeles Times in the 1950s. The New York Herald Tribune, also in the 1950s, had a spot occasionally reserved for outside contributors on its editorial page.

Guthman crosses the line

Not until 1970 did the New York Times expand its editorial section by launching an op-ed page of its own. As envisioned by John Oakes, the editorial page editor, and Harrison Salisbury, the veteran Times foreign correspondent, the op-ed was meant “to open the paper to outside voices. It was to be a venue for writers with no institutional affiliation with the paper, people from all walks of life whose views and perspectives would often be at odds with the opinions expressed on the editorial page across the way.”

All these op-ed experiments shared the perception that there’s more than one way to get at the truth, and that the rules of journalism aren’t engraved in stone. But the old notion of strictly separating news and commentary remained.

It was left to Ed Guthman, my editorial page editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, to attempt to cross that line. Guthman believed that a paper’s editorial positions should develop logically from the news reported by the paper’s own journalists. That is, editorial policy shouldn’t influence news coverage, but there’s nothing wrong with news coverage influencing editorial policy.

And now, the Internet

Guthman’s notion never really took hold, in part because daily newspapers were soon preoccupied with an existential challenge: the Internet. More than 3,000 American newspapers— one-third of the country’s total— have folded since 2004. The survivors may have been too shell-shocked to grasp the idea that, in a digital age, authoritative commentary could be the salvation of print newspapers— because it’s the only task newspapers can perform better than electronic media.

If you can’t get opinions from cab drivers anymore, you sure as hell can get them from any idiot on the Internet. Demoting valuable commentary to the realm of mere “opinion” serves nobody.

So…. what’s a better section heading than “Opinion”? My alternatives, strictly off the top of my head:

—Analysis
—Dialogue
—Discussion
—Commentary
—Insight
—Review
—Comment
—Debate
—Forum
—Interpretation

Maybe you have a better suggestion. This much is certain: They’re all stronger than “Opinion.” That’s just my opinion, of course.

Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s newest book, The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League, 1950-55. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com