Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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Editorials with fangs
We editorialists are such shrimpboats. So we need a big horn to be heard.
Historically, editorials have always been small, compared to everything
else of any significance in a newspaper. Almost any news story of consequence
is longer than an editorial.
Today, the editorialist’s place in the world is smaller than ever. Not
necessarily because no one cares anymore about the opinions of editorialists,
but because most people have so little time to read editorials — or anything
else.
Time is the great competitive arena today for anyone who writes. The
marketplace of information, work and leisure offers people so many other
attractive ways they could be spending their precious 24-hour allotment.
And what makes matters worse for the editorialist at the average large
daily paper now is that publishers, uncertain of just what their readers
want, are giving them everything but the kitchen sink (just kidding; kitchen
sink features appear all the time). We editorialists have to convince readers
we aren’t just more of the same.
All this is by way of suggesting that I think too many editorial pages
today are on the wrong track. The hard-hitting, high muzzle-velocity editorial
has given way to essays felt to be more measured, more analytical, even
"balanced." But is this "thoughtful," if not particularly opinionated,
editorializing going to attract and hold readers’ eyes in the brutal daily
competition for their time? I don’t think so.
I suspect that many readers would welcome an editorial voice with a
strong point of view, strongly stated. That is because so much of the world
of information now is trying to be largely non-judgmental. Newspapers,
mindful of diverse constituencies, are careful not to offend. TV news is
pabulum. But TV’s evening talk shows are shouting matches, conferring dignity
on the kind of argumentation formerly heard in bars or dormitories.
Yet the world keeps tossing up events, issues about which an informed
electorate needs to have reasonably intelligent opinions. It has always
been my belief that those opinions are best formed by an individual from
the inside out, originating in his or her gut, moving up through the central
processing unit and emerging as "what I think" about this subject. And
the best way to put that opinion-forming process in motion is by poking,
prodding and pleading with your readership. That is, the best opinions
are reactions to someone else’s opinions — in this instance the highly
opinionated editorial writer.
The accompanying editorial "500 Drug Geniuses" is about the war on illegal
drugs. Some 500 eminent people signed a letter to the effect that the current
war isn’t working and should be abandoned. Daintily avoided in this open
letter was any mention of drug legalization. We decided it was disingenuous
of them to raise this subject without discussing legalization. But journalistically,
the beauty of their open letter was that it served as a perfect pretext
to open up editorially a larger subject — to get our readers’ intellectual
juices running around an issue or problem — drugs — that troubles many
of them and isn’t going away.
If our editorial, "500 Drug Geniuses," had magisterially considered
all sides of this issue, with an opinion shyly appended at the finish,
I suspect it would have left our readers befuddled and frustrated. Instead,
our expectation was that this particular style would elicit either approval
of our view, or condemnation. But at least our readers would know where
they stand as a result, and under our nation’s political system, the more
people know where they stand, the better. Shaking those opinions out of
them with a strong editorial voice is, I think, a small price to pay.
Henninger is deputy editor/editorial page of The Wall Street Journal.
