As an English Major, in composition class, I learned to write a persuasive argument, an essay specifically designed to sway the reader’s opinion on a subject. (If you were involved in debate or forensics in high school or college, you should be familiar with how this type of argument works.)
Most opinion pieces in news media (physical and on line) are persuasive arguments. While the writer is providing their opinion on a matter, its purpose is to sway your opinion to match theirs. This is especially true when the writer has made a career of writing such opinion pieces; they know what they are doing. This is one reason why it is important to provide opposing viewpoints.
[Note: while viewpoints can be expressed in writing or orally, I will refer to readers in this post because this post was prompted by a written opinion piece.]
Although not always the case, opposing views should (must) be expressed by writers of equal knowledge or expertise. It is not just that the mismatch in those expressing their views are the problem, but also that readers are not aware of this difference, or do not understand why that difference is problematic. Very often, the media (i.e., FOX News) present each opinion as equally valid. This is coming to be called “bothsideism,” a bastardization of the issue-balancing of true journalistic integrity.
[For more discourse on “bothsideism” see:
- The Conversation https://theconversation.com/suicide-for-democracy-what-is-bothsidesism-and-how-is-it-different-from-journalistic-objectivity-230894,
- Merriam-Webster https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/bothsidesing-bothsidesism-new-words-were-watching
- The Pew Research Center https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/07/13/u-s-journalists-differ-from-the-public-in-their-views-of-bothsidesism-in-journalism/.]
Ultimately, this means that readers are swayed by invalid arguments. This extends into the opinion or OPED pages of newspapers where a persuasive argument is presented as “just an opinion” without any sort of balance (opposing opinion piece) offered.
These pieces are not like an article written by a journalist who strives to provide balanced reporting of both sides of an issue. And when such an “opinion” is published in a newspaper such as The New York Times or Washington Post, the everyday reader might infer some of that journalistic balance to the opinion. A balance that does not exist.
Many readers do not realize the purpose of these opinion pieces. (See this tutoring aid from New England College, it explains the purpose of a persuasive essay on page 2: https://www.nec.edu/wp-content/uploads/tutoring-different-types-of-essays-in-compostion.pdf.) This is dangerous because it is not “just an opinion” in these essays.
[If you want to see what prompted this post, you can read this post on my non-editing blog about an opinion essay that spurred a heated conversation between my husband and I here: https://taramoeller.wordpress.com/?p=935.]
There is a time and place for a persuasive argument (think a lawyer providing a closing argument in a case, but both sides get to present a conclusion.)
As an editor, it is my job to recognize the argument being made by the writer in such a piece and help them articulate it (add citations, make sure the reasoning flows logically, as well as correcting basic grammar and syntax; I am supposed to keep my own opinion out of whatever piece I am editing).
As a technical editor of government reports, one of my purposes when editing was to keep any and all opinion out of the report. The reports I edited were specifically meant to be neutral in opinion and only present an unbiased analysis of collected data. This was to facilitate the government making an unbiased decision about whatever program had been tested.
An unbiased opinion is an oxymoron.
Perhaps, my 17-plus years of culling persuasive language out of test reports means I am an expert in finding the subtle persuasive language in everything I read, and interpreting around that language. I think it means I can see the “red flags” quicker than a reader who is not an editor.
Because this needs more than just critical reading. A critical reader can understand that 71% is more than 5 in 10 (they can convert this to 50%), but I’m not entirely sure they understand that where that 71% came from and where that 5 in 10 came from matter, too. Especially if they came from different sources. [I have a post on using statistics here: https://taramoellerediting.com/?p=43 (available on 14 January 2025).]
With my editing training and experience, often, when I see a red flag in a piece, I stop reading and find an unbiased article on the same topic so I can truly form my own opinion. Or, more likely, an article written by an expert in the field that is being written about; it may not be completely unbiased, but it is probably biased by experience or knowledge about the subject, and I can take that into account when reading.
There is a lot of discourse about news and history being “propaganda”, and I believe this to be true in a lot of ways. Think about it, history is written by the “winner” (e.g., the parts of the world pillaged, conquered, and subdued by Alexander the Great call him something completed different).
When we discuss propaganda in media (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_through_media, https://journalism.university/media-and-communication-theories/medias-role-in-propaganda-historical-to-modern-politics/), rather than just discuss educating the average reader about “propaganda”, we also need to discuss educating them about “opinion” and “arguments” and “bias”, especially in a time when an opinion is never “just an opinion.”
If we don’t, no one will be able to form their “own opinion” about anything.
Tara Moeller - Editing 