op-ed page
An op-ed is an essay published by a news outlet, either in print or online, that expresses the authorâs viewpoint. In a print newspaper, such opinion pieces generally appear on the op-ed page. The term op-ed is an abbreviation of âopposite editorial,â which comes from the tradition of newspapers placing opinion material on the page opposite the editorial page. In a broadsheet newspaper, the editorial section is typically published on one or two pages of the first news section of the newspaper that displays the masthead, which includes the title, ownerâs name, and staff listing of the newspaper. The section also includes editorials, columns by syndicated and local guest writers, political cartoons, and letters to the editor. While the editorial page usually contains the opinions of the newspaperâs editorial board, the op-ed page is reserved for articles by other writers who are usually not affiliated with the paper.
Op-ed articles may come from freelance writers, advocacy and industry groups, public relations agencies, and others. Over time, the term op-ed itself has evolved into an adjective denoting all opinion aspects of newspapers, such that some use the term to mean âopinion/editorialâ rather than âopposite editorial.â Some of the most prominent op-ed pages in U.S. newspapers are those of The New York Times (where the op-eds are now called âguest essaysâ), The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal.
The Essay
The op-ed itself is a short essay intending to inform the public about an issue and to indicate some means for its resolution. Many op-ed essays tend to follow one basic structure: lead (around a news hook), thesis (statement of argument either explicit or implied), argument based on evidence (such as statistics, news, reports from credible organizations, expert quotes, scholarship, history, firsthand experience), a to-be-sure paragraph (in which the author preempts potential critics by acknowledging any flaws in the argument and addresses any obvious counterarguments), and the conclusion (often circling back to the authorâs lead).
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Frank Partsch, who served as editorial page editor of the Omaha World-Herald from 1982â2003, argued that the op-ed page has a primary duty to provide opinions not ordinarily found on the editorial page. Secondarily, it should provide a variety of opinions selected as being, in the editorsâ judgment, useful to readers. Often, these come from a regular lineup of syndicated columnistsâcolumnists with a following, which limits the editorsâ ability to cut their columns to make room for more nonregulars.
Vying for the remaining handful of slots on the op-ed page are unsolicited articles, which have increased in the digital age. According to some editors, a rebuttal by a person or institution criticized in an editorial gets top priority. An article by a public official going behind or beyond the news is usually picked up. Editors also look for scholarly analysis of public policy and infrequent pieces in which a regular reader finds a fresh and creative voice and deals authoritatively with an issue worthy of general reader attention.
Development
The American model of journalistic objectivity is a fairly recent development, predated by the partisan press and interspersed with various reactionary movements, such as new journalism (1960â1970s) and public journalism (1990s). During the partisan press era in the United States, news organizations aligned themselves politically and presented news from a specific partisan point of view, without the guise of objectivity. But since roughly the 1940s, mainstream U.S. newspapers have been expected to operate within the norms of the objective model, with news articles not expressing the opinion of the writer or newspaper. The editorial section of the paper is an exception. These pages are the outlets for the editorial board, the publisher-sanctioned mouthpiece of the newspaper, to collectively craft and publish its views on a wide range of topics.
In 1970, The New York Times launched the first modern opposite of the editorial page, or op-ed page, opening its pages to outside, nonjournalist contributors. In that spirit, the Times hired a conservative nonjournalist, William Safire, as a regular op-ed columnist. According to Stephen Rosenfeld, former editorial page editor of The Washington Post, in doing so, the Times was responding to popular calls for the institutions of authority in American society to, in effect, move over and make room for other participants. A growing appreciation of the complexity of issues of public policy made newspapers ready to share different perspectives on those issues.
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However, The New York Times did not create the first op-ed page. Instead, the idea was conceived of by Herbert Bayard Swope, an editor at the New York World in the 1920s, who used the name Op. Ed. The difference from op-ed pages then and now is that Swope did not print unsolicited letters from the general public; instead he rounded up big names to write the letters.
Even so, The New York Times is widely credited for developing the archetype of modern op-ed pages in September 1970. By the 1970s, editors tried to distinguish their op-ed pages from others, but most adopted the common practice of devoting most, if not all, of their op-ed pages to outside voices. The Chicago Tribune used its op-ed page in the 1970s to run opinions that countered the Tribuneâs staunchly conservative views, while the Los Angeles Times opted for more localized opinions of a less intellectual bent than those found in The New York Times. In the early 1980s, the Cleveland Plain Dealer tried to engage its readers with more local voices by dropping syndicated columnists entirely for a time and recruiting local writers to contribute periodically. The increased use of op-ed pages encouraged the development of political columns in the 1960s and 1970s, and the sense that readers needed help in understanding not only politics, government, and business but also changing lifestyles led to a marked proliferation in types as well as numbers of columns.
By 1980, most newspapers had humorists as well as analysts on their editorial or op-ed pages, and some, especially smaller ones that did not have separate business or lifestyle sections, ran advice columns on business and other topics there. A survey conducted during the mid-1970s found that virtually all newspapers used some type of column on their editorial or op-ed pages. Political analysis and political reporting, presented in 93% and 75% of these columns, respectively, were the most popular. Other columns featured humor (63%), business (33%), religion (20%), advice (13%), and gossip (1%).
A 2013 Pew Research Center article reported that over the previous decade, there was a decline in the amount of space newspapers allotted to editorial and op-ed pages. According to the article,
Some papers have tried to compensate by running more editorials and columns online and launching more opinion-driven blogs. Some have shifted away from one of the historic missions of newspapersâinfluencing public opinionâand instead seek to foment community conversations online.
These trends have continued. Notably, in 2022 Gannett Co., Inc., the largest U.S. newspaper publisher, significantly reduced the editorial and opinion content across many of its papers, including USA Today, as part of a broader restructuring.
Until the late 1990s, which saw the rise and proliferation of Internet venues for news and opinion, op-ed pages were one of the few places in mainstream media where members of the public were provided an opportunity to offer their perspectives and shape public debate. In the 21st century, venues for opinionated public affairs content have proliferated in all forms of media, even those traditionally reserved for objective news.
In news magazines, newspapers, television news broadcasts, and online news sites, opinion and editorial sections abound. In many instances, they continue to be demarcated as such and cordoned off through section headers or prefaces and disclaimers from the official news sections of those publications and broadcasts. In other cases, the line between news and opinion is less clear. Some scholars argue that with the ability of the average person to publish commentary online or through social media platforms, singular access to public space through newspaper op-ed sections is rendered less crucial. And so while newspaper op-ed pages still potentially wield power by influencing the sentiments of their readers, they are only one force of opinion in an ever-growing opinion media landscape.
Purpose and Structure
Newspaper op-ed pages can serve as a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism, one of the obligations of newspapers listed in the 1947 report of the Commission on Freedom of the Press, also known as the Hutchins Commission. Some newspapers may see op-ed pages as a comparatively inexpensive way to enhance their public image and attract readers. Some may obtain columnists to keep opposition newspapers from using them. Many look to columnists for information, analysis, and comment concerning national and international affairs that they cannot afford to obtain on their own and which are not necessarily available through the basic wire services.
Some newspapers run columnists whose voices support and reinforce the philosophy of the publishers; some run columnists that differ with them politically, philosophically, or both, to provide readers a choice of benchmarks against which to measure their own views. Columnists can help satisfy these goals and perhaps provide incidental benefits such as provision of ideas for editorials. By the turn of the 21st century, many newspapers had expanded the role of the op-ed page to their editorial pages, sometimes surrendering space normally reserved for the newspaperâs editorials for essays and letters from contributors and readers. Many newspapers that had just one opinion page per edition constructed them more as op-ed pages than as traditional editorial pages.
Smaller, more local newspapers sometimes feature community issue sections in their op-ed pages in which members of the paperâs readership can weigh in on topics that affect their local community. At larger papers, letters to the editor are often selected and printed in the op-ed pages on the basis of the authority or notoriety of the writer, but often on the basis of the point of view expressed. Letters to the editor usually range in length from 200 to 500 words and are shorter than op-ed essays.
Corporations have strategically engaged in op-ed campaigns using paid issue advertisements that are printed in the op-ed pages of newspapers, such as the Mobil Oil Corporationâs op-ed campaigns between 1982 and 1986. Other organizations, including universities, have used unpaid essays on op-ed pages as a way of increasing the institutionâs visibility. Public figures and academics often attempt to act as public intellectuals by getting their essays or columns published in the pages of well-known newspapers and magazines. In these ways, the op-ed pages may be used by interested parties to try to persuade readers to their point of view and gain recognition. A 2018 research study by Alexander Coppock, Emily Ekins, and David Kirby found that op-eds can change the minds of those who read them. The studyâs authors estimated that in a major publication such as The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, or USA Today, if a successful op-ed is read by about a half-million people, it may change between 50,000 and 100,000 minds.
In September 2018, The New York Times published an anonymous op-ed by a source within the presidential administration of Donald Trump that became a viral sensation. Titled, âI Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,â the piece described efforts by White House staffers, including the author of the op-ed, to thwart Trumpâs âamoralityâ and âimpulsiveness.â The identity of the writer was a secret at the time to all but the Times publisher and editors in the newspaperâs Opinion section. In late 2019, after resigning from the Trump administration, the same person published a book critical of Trump titled A Warning. It was not until October 2020 that the author revealed himself to be Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security.
Challenges
Editors note that one challenge of maintaining a distinct op-ed page is generating a steady supply of quality submissions to fill the daily page. While prominent pages such as those of The New York Times and The Washington Post often ask noteworthy people to write op-eds, many newspapers seem to rely on a combination of volunteer writers from the community and unsolicited contributions. Some newspapers create contributor boards, or groups of diverse people from the community, who are asked to occasionally write columns. Some newspapers rely entirely on unsolicited contributions. A few use their op-ed pages for special purposes, such as publishing the submissions of scholastic essay contests or carrying a variety of opinions on specific themes that are of interest to the community.
Menâs voices have dominated U.S. newspapersâ op-ed pages, while womenâs voices have been noticeably lacking. Some successful op-ed contributors, in the spirit of increasing diversity of opinion, are training women at universities, foundations, and corporations to write op-ed essays and get them published. The OpEd Project, for instance, has worked to increase commentary from âunderrepresented thinkers, including women of all backgrounds.â
Some journalists and journalism scholars have noted another challenge facing op-ed editors: keeping the page open to citizen writers as opposed to politicians, scholars, news makers, public relations specialists, and special interest groups. Editors often give preference to submissions from people who are principal figures in news stories, experts in the topic area discussed, or prominent at the local or national levels. Some newspapers sell space on the op-ed page for ads, further limiting the space available for essays from citizen writers.
The original version of this article was published by SAGE Publications in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Journalism.