4-1-09: Whose opinion is it anyway?
By: Andrew Bruner
Issue date: 3/17/09 Section: Editor's blog
With my first post back from spring break, I want to clear up one of the most common misunderstandings about what people read in The DePauw: the differences among opinion columns, editorials and letters to the editor. Each designation represents the thoughts of different people and is handled in a different way by the newspaper.
The meat of every opinion section is the columns. The DePauw's opinion editor recruits a group of columnists to write for the paper on a rotation. We don't ask people to write based on their views on any subject; columnists are generally the first people to volunteer to write.
No one on The DePauw's staff ever tells a columnist what views to express, and we don't often give them topics to write on. Columnists generally just submit their columns and go on their merry way. That's why it worries me when I hear people say, "The DePauw said x" or y or z when they're really referring to what an individual columnist said.
Editorials - labeled on the first page of the opinion section - do represent the views of certain members of The DePauw's staff. The editor in chief, managing editors, copy editors and any former editors in chief still on staff comprise the editorial board, which authors the editorials.
In the three semesters I've been a member of ed board, consensus has been the key to writing editorials. Ed board could just figure out what the majority of members think on an issue and say that the other members "did not participate in this editorial because they disagree," but instead we try to figure out what opinions we can express about an issue that we all agree on.
The nature of The DePauw's staff presents challenges to writing editorials in which every member of ed board can participate. It's common journalistic practice that if a reporter covers a story, that reporter should not then publish his or her opinions about the subject. At many professional newspapers, editors and editorial writers don't cover any news, so they maintain a firm separation between opinion and the facts of a news story.
The meat of every opinion section is the columns. The DePauw's opinion editor recruits a group of columnists to write for the paper on a rotation. We don't ask people to write based on their views on any subject; columnists are generally the first people to volunteer to write.
No one on The DePauw's staff ever tells a columnist what views to express, and we don't often give them topics to write on. Columnists generally just submit their columns and go on their merry way. That's why it worries me when I hear people say, "The DePauw said x" or y or z when they're really referring to what an individual columnist said.
Editorials - labeled on the first page of the opinion section - do represent the views of certain members of The DePauw's staff. The editor in chief, managing editors, copy editors and any former editors in chief still on staff comprise the editorial board, which authors the editorials.
In the three semesters I've been a member of ed board, consensus has been the key to writing editorials. Ed board could just figure out what the majority of members think on an issue and say that the other members "did not participate in this editorial because they disagree," but instead we try to figure out what opinions we can express about an issue that we all agree on.
The nature of The DePauw's staff presents challenges to writing editorials in which every member of ed board can participate. It's common journalistic practice that if a reporter covers a story, that reporter should not then publish his or her opinions about the subject. At many professional newspapers, editors and editorial writers don't cover any news, so they maintain a firm separation between opinion and the facts of a news story.
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