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silverham... silverham...
 
M$2.05 October 16, 2009 04:01 AM

Op-ed?

What in the world is an "op-ed"?

Can anyone "op-ed" or do you need to be recognized by another organization (like a writers guild or reporters union)?

Why are they being quoted more than other sources these days? Are they more authoritative? Do they harness more resources than normal reporters?

Can you show an op-ed next to a regular news article (on the same topic) to show the differences and similarities? Or are they totally different and can't be compared?

(If everyone posts answers and examples, the tip will most likely go to the person whose formatted response is easiest to understand and addresses all points in the best example of Mahalo style.)
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buddawiggi buddawiggi
 
 October 16, 2009 11:28 AM
Op/ed: "opinion" opposite of the "editorial".

An op-ed is a signed article, possibly by a guest writer, in the opinion/editorial section of the newspaper that is of the opposite opinion of that newspapers editorial board.(1)

As far as who can write an op/ed piece the goes, at Duke University according to their Office of News and Communications the qualifications are: faculty expert, or member of the community that has an interesting opinion.(2)

>"Why are they being quoted as sources?"
I don't know exactly what you mean. did you mean here on Mahalo Answers?

In other areas the op/ed might be used as a source just to be able to say that there are other opinions. Op/eds are just opinions nothing more. They usually are well researched for the facts they will need to present the reasons the author feels a particular way. As far as more authority or more resources goes the op/ed piece uses the same ones a factual news article would the op/ed just presents the authors particular viewpoint on these facts.

This Article(3) from the History News Service shows and tells through examples and comments just how to write an op/ed piece and get it placed in your favorite newspaper. There are some cool examples of op/ed in this section.
Source(s):
(1)http://nie.brownsvilleherald.com/newspaperterms.htm
(2)http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/duke_community/oped.html
(3)http://www.h-net.org/~hns/opedstyle.html

Asker's Rating:
• I'm selecting best answer now because it is unlikely that anyone could do better, especially seeing that no one has tried. But I hope you'll continue to reply at least one more time with the first frequent use of the term "op-ed". Maybe the year it became fashionable to use such articles WITH the term "op-ed". If it has always been that way and I've only recently paid attention enough to notice, my bad. :)

Thanks again for your grand research. A perfect example of how to format and answer a question on Mahalo too.

I look forward to your next reply!


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silverhamm... silverhamm...
 
October 16, 2009 11:35 AM
>"Why are they being quoted as sources?"
In the news (TV, radio). I hear the term all the time, "in an op-ed piece so & so said...".

When was the term first used? Has there always been op-ed pieces and just never read on the news before? When did it become so widespread? Granted it has been a couple years, but I'd never heard the term before then. Was I just living under a rock?

Entirely possible. :)

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buddawiggi buddawiggi
 
October 16, 2009 12:27 PM
I see.

They are quoted as sources in the common era of newspapering (either or online) because the op/eds are written by supposed experts in the subject matter of the article.

Take a look at this article from the Providence Journal in 2005. A man named Rob Kampia wrote an op/ed article from the perspective of a marijuana expert (he is/was the executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project) where he uses facts from his area of expertise to express his opinion of the state of medical marijuana in the United States by showing examples of how medical marijuana work in Canada. He is considered an expert on the subject and his op/ed piece could be used as a source for those trying to express similar opinions.
http://www.mpp.org/states/alaska/news/oped-medical-marijuana-works-in.html

The history of the op/ed term has proven difficult for me to find. I have yet to discover where and when the term was first used.

You and me both could be living under rocks but I believe in our divided world where facts are *spun* whimsically to influence public opinion, especially here in America, as the vocal groups in the media drift farther apart in perspective the number of op/eds used as sources will increase. Each side will need its experts to present the same facts but in a light that will further the spread of that opinion.

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buddawiggi buddawiggi
 
October 16, 2009 12:39 PM
I suspect the first editorials were written in the first newspapers so as well were the first op/eds but I cannot seem to find proof of this or the term op-ed being used to describe articles that are written in opposition to the editorial board of a newspaper. I suspect The New England Courant published by James Franklin in 1721 might be where to look but haven't seen proof of this.

I believe there always have been op/ed pieces as each media outlet will present different opinions often in opposition to each other but I will keep looking for when excactly the op-ed term was used.

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buddawiggi buddawiggi
 
October 16, 2009 01:06 PM
Horace Greeley editor of the New York Tribune from the 1840s to the 1870s would commonly editorialize for the Whig and Republican parties but although this could be considered an editorial it would only serve to "op-ed" other newspapers and their editorials against the Whig or Republican parties as the I can find no proof that opposing viewpoint were published in the same paper.
http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/fenimore/greeley.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_greely
It seems now I am looking for the first time a newspaper added an opposing viewpoint to its pages in order to appear more objective.

Having fun :)

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silverhamm... silverhamm...
 
October 16, 2009 07:49 PM
You have dug deep, I appreciate it. I've seen opposing opinions in the paper for years but only in the past few years have been inundated with the reference to "...in an op-ed piece yesterday".

In the past, no matter how knowledgeable or important a contributor was, they were never a quoted (and named) op-ed source on the TV/Radio news as such - with the exception of editorial cartoons every now and then. But the cartoon was never referred to as "op-ed". So when did it become so fashionable?

I think there are many authors on Mahalo that could write a decent op-ed piece if they tried. Like yourself. Or would your article be passed over for someone more well known. Which brings me back to my original question - is it enough to know something? Or do you have to have multiple credentials and connections to even get printed?

I know you said it's enough to simply have an interesting opinion, but has the trend turned away from "interesting" to a popularity contest lately? Are we only hearing op-ed pieces quoted from the same contributors when a more "interesting" piece is overlooked because the author/contributor isn't popular?

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buddawiggi buddawiggi
 
October 16, 2009 08:27 PM
@silverhammer thank you for asking this question and I assure you I will follow my nose until I find the answer to the question "When was the term op-ed first used to describe a opposition article in a newspaper and when was the firs op-ed published". I have to go run some errands but when I get back I will get back to work.

For now I have found a few informative links on op-eds and how to write and submit them. I was just reading these looking for the answer to the above question and although it was not there I still found them useful and informative.

1.http://www.theopedproject.org/cms/

2.http://www.clintreilly.com/editorial-boards-and-the-public-interest/

3.http://www.washpost.com/news_ed/editorial/submit_oped.shtml

I will be back in a few hours to find out the rest of the answer.

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buddawiggi buddawiggi
 
October 16, 2009 10:47 PM
I have found a bit of useful information.

It does not take much conjecture to see that the book by Herbert Gans(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_J._Gans) "Deciding What's News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek and Time" published in 1979 has directed the sway away from true factual sources to opinions that are drawn and spun *from facts* and now (as of 1979) considered viable news sources. The below quote is from a review of the book from NYU.

~quote
"Gans contends that implicit values are inextricable from the news--even in terms of selecting stories, accessing sources, and asking certain questions. He cites upper-middle-class values of ethnocentrism, altruistic democracy, responsible capitalism, small-town pastoralism, moderatism, and order"
~endquote

Furthering the possibility of this book being what allowed for an op-ed to become a source is this.

~quote
Gans discusses the structure of news organizations, criteria for story suitability (considering importance or interest), and journalists' symbiotic relationships with sources.
~endquote

Now as this book is, as far as I have read, a widely read source and a definitive shaping tool of modern journalism.

If we take that as a good assumption as to how the journalistic world reacted to this type of re-workmanship of the journalistic model then the above quote does make it not only easy to put opinion into fact and still call the combination a source but readily accepts this behavior as accepted and common.

I believe this book might be at least partially responsible for the addition of "fact + expert opinion" as an additional source model.
http://journalism.nyu.edu/portfolio/books/book49.html

That book was read and studied by most if not all potential journalists as they studied throughout the 80s and their ideas about journalism clearly were shaped by it.
This article from Carnegie Reporter goes into quite a bit of detail in its 5 pages that I believe further the idea that the seed of Herbert Gans containd within the pages of his book an the well timed "discovery of the internet" just 10 to 12 years later has re-shaped what journalists call a source and what is defined as acceptable as fact.
http://www.carnegie.org/reporter/10/news/index.html

I still have not found the historical notation of exactly when and by whom the first op-ed was written and published with the article being clearly labeled as an "op-ed".

I'm still working on it.

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