Jeff Jarvis wrote a provocative piece last month that voiced something I'd been thinking for quite awhile: that the traditional newspaper editorial page is out of step with the new world in which everyone has a forum. I was reminded of that today when checking in on our experiment in Bluffton, where pseudonymous blogger Peble wrote:
"When you choose to contact the LETTERS TO THE EDITOR in the BT paper it is mandatory that you use your REAL NAME and where you live,but,someone in BT writes a big editorial column every day without any identification? I would like it if they would use their name so we would know who to thank for their opinions. Wouldnt you?"
I don't think the editorial page of a newspaper is doomed to irrelevancy, but editorial pages must come to grips with the new world. The disconnection between editors of opinion in newspapers and the opinionated forums on many of those same newspapers' websites is mind-boggling.
To be relevant in the 21st century, I think editorialists need to become Web-centric conversation leaders, provocateurs, and embracers of opposing viewpoints. That shouldn't really be a role shift, should it?
Comments
anonymous staff editorials
At some papers, including my own, unsigned editorials are written to convey the consensus view of the editorial board (in our case, about a half-dozen staffers plus the publisher), rather than the view of any individual in that group. In a sense, once the board's consensus view is reached, it doesn't really matter who is assigned to write the editorial expressing that view; any and all members are expected to be able to do so.
This fact doesn't impeach your larger point, but I think it needs to be made clear that comparing an individually authored letter to the editor, expressing one individual's opinion, with a staff editorial expressing a group's consensus is not exactly apples-to-apples.