Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407140055
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Alan Sorensen editorial page editor
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
I know I'd be, if for no other reason than because employment is preferable to the alternative.
But McNichol goes on to ask: "Would angry placard-carrying crowds gather on the front steps of the country's dailies and refuse to disperse until papers once again devoted space to facile and excruciatingly temperate opinions?"
Well, maybe not. But that seems to me an unfair question.
I was asked recently to respond to McNichol's article in our company newsletter. (Yes, we like news so much, we write it to each other.) McNichol contends that readers wouldn't miss editorials - what he calls "journalistic oatmeal" - because most newspapers have grown so cautious and tentative that they've reduced their opinions to platitudes swimming in blather.
McNichol mimicks the kind of editorial fare he finds repulsive:
"Escalating violence is cause for alarm, and we call on all sides to lay down their arms and stop the senseless killing. . . . What everyone wants is peace, and recent peace overtures are reason for cautious optimism. But peace is a process, and much difficult work still needs to be done to secure the peace. Only time will tell. Many dangers lie ahead, and there are no quick and easy answers. . . . But the goal is surely worth the effort. The American public deserves nothing less."
The American public deserves something more, of course, and the familiarity of some of this mock prose is a bit discomforting. About oatmeal, McNichol has a point.
But I still say he overheats it, enough anyway to get my professional dander up.
Where do I stand on editorial oatmeal?
Well, it depends.
If, by oatmeal, we mean editorializing that says nothing, I'm against the stuff.
There, I said it. No ifs or buts; never mind the consequences to my career. If not to death, then at least to some deprivation or discomfort, I will defend McNichol's bold proposition that vigorous editorials are preferable to limp and lifeless ones.
I'm even prepared to side with him when he detects a national affliction in the separation of editorialists from their spines.
A newspaper's editorial voice is a privilege and a responsibility. We ought to be provoking thought and discussion, helping to lead our communities.
Instead, I'll have to agree with McNichol, many newspapers are filling unread editorial columns with bland, insipid goo. Editorials trying merely to reflect readers' opinions make the same mistake that politicians do when they assume that citizens want survey results read back to them.
But all of that is on the one hand. There is another.
If, by oatmeal, we mean any editorials that avoid baseless assertion, ideological ranting or gratuitous insult, then I'd say we at this newspaper and at others ought to appreciate, like hungry people on a cold morning, the merits of a hearty porridge.
Editorial writers, in my opinion, needn't lay out the opposing viewpoint in full. But if we're all argument, no facts; if, over time, we never attempt to rebut points that might be raised against our opinions; if we fail even implicitly to acknowledge that most issues have more than one side, we can forget about persuading anyone.
Our editorials should reflect a coherent philosophy. But we also try to work through the practical consequences of proposals being endorsed or criticized, instead of reflexively and predictably applying some know-it-all abstract ideology. (Hmm, what would Milton Friedman say about our cat ordinance?)
We try not to shrink from giving offense when such is due. But neither should we confuse vigorous writing with mindless invective or off-putting snideness.
I say all this knowing that some readers, perhaps a few Oliver North supporters among them, may believe we at this newspaper prize nothing so much as sneering, partisan contumely. I'd like to think we don't. But I also know that if everyone agreed with what we said in editorials, we'd be saying nothing.
McNichol in his article commends the idea of attaching signatures to editorials. But these aren't unsigned to protect the writers' anonymity (though that can be sometimes a comforting benefit). In fact, names of those responsible for the opinions appear beneath the editorials every day.
No, editorials are unsigned because they're intended to represent the newspaper's institutional view. Whatever that may be - it has something to do with a consensus of the editorial board under the publisher's direction - I hope it's elevated enough not to stoop, except with cause, to calling people blockheads or boobies. If superficial editorials are unfilling, surely arrogant or malicious ones are indigestible.
We editorial writers aren't doing our job if we fail to produce not just vivid writing and strong opinions, but the occasional effective argument. The latter implies respect for reasoning readers.
I imagine readers of newspapers, as of anything else, hate boring prose. But I imagine you also hate to be talked down to. And you probably look for many of the same elements in editorials that you like in news stories: accuracy, substance and fairness among them. These are standards by which we should be happy to be judged.
"Perhaps the only newspaper in the country that can't be accused of lacking editorial vigor, and even nastiness," writes McNichol admiringly, "is The Wall Street Journal."
Well, I'd like to believe that vigor and nastiness haven't yet become, in our country or in newspapers, entirely equivalent.
I must admit I enjoy reading the Wall Street Journal's opinions, but I rarely respect them in the morning. Personally, I like editorials neither cold nor too hot, but just right.
by CNB