The End of Opinion

Newspapers are rethinking, or even ending, the traditional opinion column, and I think that's just fine

This is the first week in almost fourteen years (with a handful of exceptions) that I will not see a weekly newspaper column in print under my byline.

Last Friday, the Bangor Daily News announced that it was ending its traditional opinion section, parting ways with its weekly paid columnists, of which I was one.

Now, instead of featuring established writers, the BDN will be changing its opinion section to “reflect changed reading habits.” It will focus less on “the BDN editorial board suggesting what readers should think and do” and instead feature “more commentary from experts to better inform ourselves, our audience and our political leaders.”

I have no intention of lighting the place on fire on my way out the door, as Paul Krugman just recently did after his departure from The New York Times, but I will admit I did find the line about “experts” to be curious, considering I possess a master’s degree in economics and am the head of a think tank that conducts research and analysis on most areas of public policy. Amy Fried, a liberal writer who has been writing her column as long as I have, possesses a PhD in Political Science from the University of Minnesota, and much as I may disagree with her, she certainly meets the mainstream definition of an expert on politics.

But let’s set that aside for now, and deal with the essence of what BDN has chosen to do, because (believe it or not) I think it was the right move. Ultimately, while I enjoyed writing the column and am proud of the work I did and the recognition I twice received from the Maine Press Association for my writing, I am neither surprised by this change, nor all that upset.

In the end, this was inevitable and I have been expecting it. To explain why, let’s go back in time. Way back.

The Origin of Newspaper Opinion

The newspaper column, as we conceive of it today, is nearly as old as the newspaper itself. In the 17th century, newsletters, information sheets, and pamphlets made use of the printing press to spread information to large groups of people, often lacing it with bias and perspective in order to rally people behind various social and religious causes.

Over time, more formal publications began to crop up, seeking to spread information to a larger audience. The news-hungry consumers of these nascent newspapers were interested in knowing what was happening, but they also craved discussion and insight into the events they were reading about.

Remember that at this time, there was no such thing as “mass media,” and nothing to satisfy the average person’s desire to learn more and engage with the news. There was no television, no 24-hour news cycle, and no internet or social media.

There was, for centuries, the newspaper.

As more recognizable newspapers began to emerge in the 18th and 19th centuries, opinion fit very neatly into the product that was being offered because there was high demand for it. This is ultimately where a form of the modern “opinion page” began, offering consumers something they desperately wanted: deeper context and perspective. One important aspect of this early innovation, though, was that straight advocacy was also reflected in the paper’s reporting itself, as “partisan papers” would maintain an intermixture of informational reporting and ideological perspective, and their separation was neither required nor demanded by the public.

That changed over time as the excesses of yellow journalism began to erode the credibility of the press in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Increasingly, the public found itself skeptical of newspapers that blurred fact and opinion, spinning stories that were clearly perverted by bias. In response to the growing distrust, reformers such as the “Father of Modern Journalism” Walter Lippmann argued in favor of a relatively new concept: journalistic objectivity. Lippmann was among the first people to call on journalists to use a version of the scientific method—with facts being gathered and presented systematically—without dramatic embellishments.

By doing this, journalists could become somewhat neutral stenographers of the events they cover, coldly separating their opinions from unadorned facts.

It turned out that the over-saturation of biased writing had created a market for this notion of “nonpartisan news,” and soon outlets cropped up to exploit the commercial opportunity to sell to broader audiences. At the same time, journalism without the limitations of a political leaning provided an opening to sell advertisements to a wider group of partners who would no longer be worried about alienating potential customers.

As newsrooms drifted toward objectivity, there did still remain a demand for opinion-style writing, so newspapers began to wall off editorial departments, separating them from news gathering, clearly labeling them as separate from reporting. As newspapers became a more important part of our civic lives, their ability to affect public opinion increased, making opinion sections quite powerful. Editorial sections grew in size, and newspapers hired dedicated columnists who excelled at crafting provocative opinions for readers.

By the time we get to the post-Great Depression era in the United States, we had arrived at the modern conception of what a newspaper is, and what it does.

I tell this long story for a reason: to demonstrate that our consumption of information and opinion changes a great deal over time.

Most people who are older than 40 years old grew up with the now familiar structure of newspapers, with no deviation. When they were children, local papers purported to cover the news objectively and featured any opinion content in a separate section that would allow us all to be exposed to analysis and perspective. That held true through their teenage years, into adulthood, midlife and beyond.

To them, this is just the way it is supposed to be and it is almost impossible to come to grips with the notion that this model may no longer make any sense. “Of course newspapers have opinion sections,” they say, “because they always have.”

Interestingly, it is the journalists themselves who have the hardest time breaking out of that type of thinking, as their entire concept of what their profession should be was built nearly a century ago, and they have lived their entire life thinking it was just “the right way.”

But in 2024, it isn’t.

The Changing Landscape of Opinion Media

Today, the entire media landscape has changed. First there was the rise of radio, then television, cable, the internet, social media and streaming. Newspapers used to be almost alone in the market, and now they compete against hundreds of different information distribution channels, including products like Substack. Now there is a great “blurring effect” in media, as the noise of competition makes it harder to stand out.

When editorial departments began, they were feeding a consumer base starved for opinion. Today we have an almost incomprehensible over-saturation of opinion. No matter where we turn, there are products meant to satisfy our desire for “hot takes” on virtually any subject, from sports, to politics, to which fictional superhero would win in a fight. In short: now we have too much opinion.

Given this, what role does a newspaper editorial section have in this kind of environment, compared to what it offered in the early days of mass media?

Ultimately, it is no longer necessary for newspapers to provide context to the news. Now there are other, far superior places to get that kind of content. If opinion sections disappeared, nearly all the writers would still write, but would enjoy more freedom in their writing and likely produce more and better content. (I’ll get to that in a minute.)

The only remaining argument for why a paper would maintain an opinion section is one that says outlets have some kind of duty to publish perspective, because they occupy a unique, influential, trusted position in society and need to responsibly guide people toward the “right” opinions. Without them, America would be led astray.

This was the philosophy behind the recent blowups at the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. In the 2024 presidential cycle, the editorial boards of both papers wanted to endorse Kamala Harris, but were blocked from doing so by their owners. In the aftermath of the Times episode, editor Mariel Garza resigned, irate that she was prevented from publishing the endorsement. As reported by the Columbia Journalism Review, she claimed to have a duty to lead public opinion:

“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told me in a phone conversation. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

The same thing happened at The Post, where there were mass resignations in protest over Jeff Bezos’ decision to spike their endorsement. Longtime editor and Pulitzer Prize winner David Hoffman and fellow editor Molly Roberts resigned almost immediately, and both echoed the sentiment expressed by Garza. As reported in the New York Post:

“I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump,” Hoffman, who took home the Pulitzer Prize last week and first joined the paper in 1982, wrote in his resignation letter, which was posted on X. “I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment.”

But one has to ask: is there really a lack of Trump criticism in the public consciousness, and will the editorials from these two newspapers say something that isn’t being said already? More importantly, will it actually influence anyone?

Do these endorsements and opinions coming from newspapers matter at all anymore?

I would argue that they are meaningless, even in the largest and highest-profile publications. If they have any remaining influence on public opinion, it is in reinforcing opinions likely already held. But those reinforcements can happen elsewhere.

The Future of Editorial Journalism

Given this reality, there is very little reason to bother maintaining opinion sections anymore, particularly when their existence only strengthens the public perception that the “straight news reporting” in newspapers is captured by the same bias they read in the opinion sections.

Most consumers today believe that traditional forms of media are untrustworthy, grinding partisan axes and attempting to manipulate our perception of facts to fit their worldview rather than reporting facts. Every year, American faith in media hits a new shocking low.

In this context, newspaper columns make no sense. When consumers demand unbiased news and media outlets are already perceived by them to be engaging in political activism, the presence of an “opinion section” only reinforces the idea that the outlet has been polluted by its own bias.

Journalists frequently try to argue that the public just doesn’t “get it.” To them, readers erroneously think bias infects reporting, and don’t realize that there is a “firewall” between news and opinion, preventing them from mixing together. Consumers, to these people, are just projecting their own biases on what they read or watch, and they are wrong.

Yet even if that is true—and frankly, I don’t think that argument is credible—it doesn’t change the perception problem that newspapers and other mainstream media enterprises are dealing with.

Cable news channels have the same problem. Much of the daytime programming at the major networks is straight news coverage, but when they get to prime time, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News all switch to opinion programming, muddling the perceived identity of their networks.

Even sports journalism has this problem. Tune into ESPN on any day and you are virtually guaranteed to see some kind of roundtable panel discussion show, rather than any kind of real news.

While the trend toward viewpoint—both in print and television—was logical based on the popularity of that type of content, the intermixture of straight news and opinion under the same brand has now poisoned the well to the point that there may not be any way to recover the lost credibility.

But some outlets are trying, which is why you are starting to see changes to opinion pages in newspapers.

In the case of the Washington Post, the impulse was to end political endorsements entirely. Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, explained the decision in an op-ed shortly after the change was announced. He identified much of what I have been talking about already, saying that Americans don’t trust the news media, and that newspapers simply can’t commingle political endorsements with objective news, and expect Americans to perceive them as unbiased:

“Voting machines must meet two requirements,” Bezos wrote. “They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first. Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement.”

Bezos was saying that whatever they may say about their own objectivity, consumers do not believe The Post’s self-image. Editorial endorsements are a key element in this perception problem.

Smart, but also not enough. The Post, and other papers, should simply remove opinion sections entirely.

The Bangor Daily News, for its part, is technically keeping its opinion section, but it is no longer paying writers, and is aggregating online content for print once a week. This change—which is a half measure—is unlikely to produce greater interest in the paper or additional revenue, and I fully expect the opinion section to be dropped entirely at some time in the future.

If that happens, I think it will be the right call.

Which brings me back to where I began: the end of my weekly column.

I Will Now Write Exclusively Here

Candidly, I’m a bit relieved to be moving on from writing for a mainstream outlet. I greatly enjoyed doing it, and my experience was a positive one. The people at BDN are good people trying to do their best and they always treated me respectfully. I also think they did a lot to help me become a better writer over the years, challenging my assumptions, correcting flaws, driving me to be better, and asking me to write on certain subjects that I may not have otherwise tackled. Their encouragement was always genuine, and I appreciate the opportunity they have given me.

But I will admit that I have long found the format of newspaper column writing to be constraining. It is no secret I enjoy writing at length, and while brevity is the soul of wit, I have long been frustrated with the limitations of having to explore serious, complex issues in 750 words or less.

Word limits exist because of the antiquated limitation that comes from physical space needed for print. While it is undeniably a good thing to trim your writing to only that which is necessary to make your point, it is also a good thing to be detailed and thorough, particularly when you (like me) enjoy nuance and complexity.

It was a very regular occurrence that I would write a commentary that began as 2,000 words or more, and space limitations meant that I would have to eliminate entire sections, angles or quotations, even though I believed them to be essential to the issue. I felt that cutting from 2,000 to 1,000 was usually the right decision for the writing, but going from 1,000 to 700(ish) often felt like I was doing a disservice to the subject. This often left me feeling like I had written a superficial column that made surface observations and did not really get to the meat of the issue.

That, of course, is not the fault of anyone at the paper, as they have an established style born of the physical product, and they need to adhere to it. But even if I didn’t blame them for it, I still didn’t enjoy the constraint.

And then there is style. Obviously I have strong perspectives on most issues, which include not only policy but politicians and parties as well. I believe opinion writing should be bold, definitive, and provocative. Yet repeatedly I felt my writing was being watered down by editing which added unnecessary, redundant qualifiers that softened my stance on things I felt strongly about.

Again, that is no fault of anyone; it is simply “the way that it is done” in column writing, likely to ensure that no one reading will mistake an unqualified opinion for a statement of fact by the publication that prints it. Still, it has been increasingly grating on me over the years, as I believe that softened language ultimately pollutes the authenticity of what I was trying to say, and I don’t think that makes for good columns.

These were minor quibbles in an otherwise very enjoyable experience, but now that it is over, I’m very pleased to shake off those limitations by writing here going forward.

In the last decade, America has seen the rise of many interesting alternatives to the traditional media landscape, including tools like Substack and podcasting.

What we are finding out is that people are hungry for something they are not getting with traditional media. Consumers are demanding more expertise, not less of it. They want more in-depth coverage of the things they care about, written by people with specific knowledge and insight. They are more than happy to read long-form writing or listen to a three-hour podcast to gain a greater understanding of things that interest them.

That is why I started this Substack last year, and it is what I promise you I will be doing here going forward. I am interested in a more substantive, detailed, analytical type of writing, and that is what I plan to write going forward, with no restrictions.

The new model, which is what journalism and opinion writing are already turning into, will be a fractured, subject-matter-based, individualized method of covering issues. The next generation of media will be open about its biases and will not attempt to masquerade as neutral. There will be no brand confusion, with some parts of an enterprise claiming objectivity, while another part revels in opinion.

That’s why I will be focusing all of my writing energy here on Substack going forward. I plan to maintain a significant amount of what I write for free, but I will likely paywall some of my content that I spend significant time on.

Interestingly, the financial model will be significantly better for me in the end. While I am no longer being paid to write by a newspaper, the subscriber potential of this publication offers an opportunity to earn far more, while asking very little of my reader base.

So if you’d like to support my writing, I’d ask you to consider becoming a paid subscriber. It would help underwrite more content here more often, but it would also help prove the point that independent writing is the future.

I believe that, and that’s why I’m here. I hope you continue to enjoy what I have to say.