The front page of The New York Times for Saturday, Dec. 5. pic.twitter.com/XsyKGA4Vrk
— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 5, 2015
As LSU’s Director of Student Media, I occasionally fire off messages to student editors and station managers with suggestions that I usually expect them to ignore. They are independent and they are rightly in charge of their newsrooms, and I didn’t follow a lot of faculty advice when I was their age either.
I sent this message to the editorial board of our newspaper, the Daily Reveille, on Oct. 1:
I just checked. I didn’t carbon anyone from the New York Times on the message. But the Times ran a front-page editorial this morning, calling for an end to “the Gun Epidemic in America.”
My students sort of followed my advice (or moved that direction on their own), running some opinions on the front page but more frequently than I suggested. That’s OK, too: The Reveille’s front page and editorials should reflect their judgment, not mine. I’m proud of their work, which has included excellent opinion pieces by columnists and the editorial board on page-one this semester, about such topics as mental health and racial discrimination at bars near campus.
As Kristen Hare’s Poynter piece that I shared with the student editors indicated, newspapers are increasingly responding to important issues by stating opinions on newsprint once reserved for “straight news”: the front page. The New York Times is following this trend, not leading it (nor am I, obviously). Hare’s piece was prompted by this Chicago Sun-Times cover:
The Times wasn’t even the first newspaper in New York to editorialize on the front page about guns this week. The tabloid Daily News took on the reflexive response of right-wing politicians to respond to gun violence with platitudes about prayer:
The Daily News also editorialized in tabloid style on the issue after the Paris attack:
The Indianapolis Star, as Hare noted, responded to legislation to allow discrimination against same-sex couples with a powerful front page:
The Sun-Herald’s Pulitzer Prize-winning public service following Hurricane Katrina included front-page editorials advocating for immediate aid to Mississippi’s devastated Gulf Coast and later for help in recovery and rebuilding.
The Times-Picayune also published a front-page editorial after Katrina (the two staffs shared the Pulitzer for their service in Katrina coverage). I can’t find an image of that front page in Google, but will look some more. I’ve inquired of editors and will update if I hear back from them.
The “open letter to the president,” written by then-Editor Jim Amoss, told then-President George W. Bush:
Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.
As I told my students, I think front-page editorials should be rare. The Times’ last front-page editorial was 95 years ago, criticizing the Republican nomination of Warren G. Harding for president, a position that seems wise in retrospect, though probably unworthy of front-page play:
The last front page editorial in the New York Times: pic.twitter.com/Sef1S4LQb6
— Binyamin Appelbaum (@BCAppelbaum) December 5, 2015
Harding won that election and his administration is best remembered for the Teapot Dome Scandal, which illustrates that you can be right in a front-page opinion and still not swing opinions your way. I’m doubtful that any amount of front-page editorials will break the National Rifle Association’s stranglehold on Congress.
Politico media critic Jack Shafer was withering in his criticism of the Times’ placement of the editorial:
If you’re going to put an editorial on Page One, shouldn’t it be persuasive?
— Jack Shafer (@jackshafer) December 5, 2015
The @nytimes is getting more notice for where it put its gun editorial than for what it said in the editorial. Speaks of failure.
— Jack Shafer (@jackshafer) December 5, 2015
I gotta admit, though I agreed with the position, the writing of the editorial didn’t live up to the historic nature of the decision to place it on the front page.
Wake me when the @nytimes runs a news story on the editorial page.
— Jack Shafer (@jackshafer) December 5, 2015
Update
Here’s a strong page-one editorial from the Detroit Free Press:
Experiments in opinion journalism
Newspapers are struggling for relevance in an age when their business model is collapsing. In the clamor of opinions available on television, radio, blogs, social media and Internet comments, the traditional newspaper editorial (and columns and cartoons) may need to find a new voice and a new place.
I encourage and applaud experimentation in opinion journalism: live chats, video and/or interactive editorials and columns, serial cartoon commentary such as the Oatmeal.
I like that editorial cartoonists, a profession profoundly hurt in newspaper cutbacks, are producing animated opinion cartoons. Mark Fiore regularly produces animated videos, including one on gun control this week. (In a companion post, I have blogged about the Des Moines Register’s great tradition of front-page editorial cartoons.)
As I have noted here before, front pages have never been free from opinion. The decisions of which stories go on the front page, which get top play, which words best capture the news in headlines and how to tell the stories are all rooted in opinions. We call them “news judgments,” and strive to avoid personal expression of opinions, but the choice of a story for the front page reflects an opinion that it is important and/or interesting.
When mass shootings happen daily in this country, the choice of which to cover on the front page reflects opinions about factors that make one outrage more newsworthy than another: body count, setting (church, school, family planning clinic, theater), apparent motivation, political or religious overtones, weapons used, etc.
I led an effort in my days at Digital First Media to rethink and encourage experimentation with opinion journalism in the digital age (links to some pieces our committee produced are at the end of this post). But, of course, we are in the overlap of digital and print ages.
I applaud experimentation with front-page editorials, ranging from student newspapers to the New York Times. Whether I agree with the content of a particular editorial or the decision to place it on Page One, I’m glad newspapers and their editorial boards are having these discussions.
My advice to students or professionals considering page-one editorials:
- Overuse of the front page for editorials or columns will blunt their impact. I do think the statement that an opinion is important enough for front-page play should be powerful on its own, and careful use will preserve that power.
- When you make the decision to write a front-page editorial, the editorial has to be eloquent and forceful. Do not indulge in committee writing. Have a vigorous board discussion, then assign your best writer to write it and your best editor to edit it (the editorial-page editor might not be either of those people, and the best ones will know that).
- Don’t expect to change the world. When I applauded the Times’ decision on Facebook last night, a commenter said, “won’t matter.” My response: “Do you have to do things only if you can predict whether they’ll matter? Sometimes you do something because it’s just right.”
Links to previous posts about opinion journalism
Guidance for journalists on expressing personal opinions
Recommendations on unsigned editorials, community opinion collaboration
Opinion engagement using social media
Consider a community editorial board
Other examples?
I welcome submissions of front-page editorials you think have worked effectively or examples of experimentation in opinion journalism. I will update this post with them or perhaps use them in a subsequent post.
Update: A response from Twitter:
@stevebuttry Gaylord family used to run POne editorials w/ regularity when they owned the Oklahoman in OKC.
— Charles Smith (@chastherev) December 5, 2015
Next: Page-one cartoons
I loved the Des Moines Register’s tradition of front-page editorial cartoons. As noted above, I have published a separate post on the Register and its cartoonists.
Believe I’m probably entitled to attribution an other than “a commenter. You’ll be hearing from my legal team at their earliest opportunity.
Anyway, I just kind of figured that front page editorials were for the “average” current reader of paper editions…..in part because of their short attention spans…….since they rarely read past the first page anyway. Those who do not go directly to “Sports”.
Well said……
Sent from my iPad mini
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You are a frequent (and always welcome) commenter here and on Facebook and CaringBridge, John. I do look forward to meeting IRL next time I’m in the Tampa Bay area.
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