by Michael Lydon
“Op-ed pages,” Wikipedia tells me, began in 1921 when a New York newspaper editor, bored by the gossip columns that filled the page facing the paper’s weighty editorials, decided to devote the “opposite editorial page” to opinion pieces for and against the paper’s usual stance on the issues of the day. The page soon became the paper’s best-read feature, and now, three decades into the online news era, many readers, after a quick scan of the day’s headlines, still settle in to read and digest the day’s op-ed columns.
Why? Because news-hungry readers want and need more than meat-and-potatoes facts; they want and need ideas and insights that can put those facts in context. Here, from ElenaH’s entry into Write the World's op-ed competition, is a perfect example of the op-ed perspective:
I am Mexican-American. But, don’t look at me like a criminal. Don’t look at me like a drug-dealer. Look at me like a human being. Look at me like you would look at yourself. We’re all people. Why do we treat each other differently based on where we come from, what we look like, and everything in between? We as Americans need to change our way of thinking towards others based on their origins and looks.
I agree. So much history and so many stories in the daily news prove conclusively that we Americans—many of whose parents and grandparents came from foreign lands—do need to change our thinking about people from the worldwide spectrum of cultures and nationalities. The bold clarity of ElenaH’s argument boosts my determination to see the people around me as human beings like myself.
Eva Vallo’s op-ed discussion about vegetarianism offers me no hard and fast answers:
Have you really researched being vegetarian? Are you vegetarian? If I were you, I would check your facts. This isn’t the best for you. Some people think that it is not okay to eat meat. They think it is gross and harmful to animals. Others think that it’s fine. There are pros and cons of both. People should eat meat because it’s healthy for you.
Instead she challenges me to check my facts, and her balanced approach—“Some people think that it is not okay to eat meat…Others think that it’s fine” challenges me to figure out what diet would be best for me.
Xojadex, from Australia, compares American and Australian healthcare, finds the American system wanting, and argues for the importance of free and/or subsidized health care:
Today in our generation, the government are making us citizens pay to visit the GP and hospitals. People with a disease or just a simple bone fracture are expected to pay for their needs and care. Medicare covered all the costs from a simple medication to life saving surgeries but our government is taking that away from us. In Australia, we are lucky that we have been provided with Medicare and our hospital costs.
Erin E GCL calls the CIA “America’s Eye,” a necessary weapon but one that’s susceptible to abuse:
Every country needs a way to protect themselves. An eye into what is going on in their country and around the world. The United States’ eye is the CIA. The issue relates to where the line should be crossed. How far can the CIA go before they have invaded our civil rights and privacy? This topic is not black and white especially since their purpose is to protect and defend our nation.
These op-eds I’ve quoted cover only a few of the subjects that WtW’s writers are ready, willing, and eager to speak their minds on. AudreyDGCL questions the value of homework in high school: “More harmful than helpful?” Zoe Skaggs hates breeding mills that sell puppies weeks before they should be separated from their mothers. Tiffanys20 quotes studies showing that “when students are not permitted cell phone use during school they become more academically involved.” BenjaminR20 thinks that sports improve students’ “dedication…and focus.” What matters most to AlaynaK is “gender equality”:
“… [inequality] is not fair for women. Women work just as hard as men and they get paid less. Your gender should not get in the way of how you support your family. Also your gender should not get in the way of your education.”
Planned Parenthood, abortion, game animal trophy hunting, taking classroom notes with a pencil or a laptop, childhood beauty pageants—whether on big issues or small, the op-ed articles you young writers are submitting go on and on, all well-written, all passionate, and all, if not convincing, at very least, eye-opening and mentally stimulating.
I know, of course, that writing op-ed pieces may well not be what pulls you to your desk. You may hope to write novels, poems, plays, movie scripts and memoirs, and I say, more power to you! Yet I also urge you to keep your opinion-writing skills sharp. Why? Here’s one reason: because writing logical argument requires many kinds of writing excellence. To win readers to your side of any issue will require clarity, simplicity, empathy, and humor. You’ll need to tell stories, to create resonant metaphors and pulsing rhythms; you’ll need to build climaxes that ebb to resolute endings.
Yet there is a reason to write in the op-ed style that’s more important than penning distinctive prose, and here’s that reason: democracies around the world depend on people of every kind and color speaking their minds with a forthright confidence in order to create real social change.
So, about any issue of current interest that awakens your “I gotta speak my mind” impulse, learn all you can, then speak up! Write up! Tell your friends, your neighbors in your town, your state, your country, and the world we all share, how you feel about any debate that interests you.
Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s bold “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” is now a foundation stone bequeathed to us as a most fortunate inheritance, but remember, when Hall first declared the idea at the turn of the twentieth century, it was the voice of one person, a person like yourself. So in the months and years ahead, let’s all keep putting in our op-ed two cents worth—they may be more valuable than we think!
About Michael
Michael Lydon is a writer and musician who lives in New York City. Author of many books, among them Rock Folk, Boogie Lightning, Ray Charles: Man and Music, and Writing and Life. A founding editor of Rolling Stone, Lydon has written for many periodicals as well, the Atlantic Monthly, New York Times, and Village Voice.
He is also a songwriter and playwright and, with Ellen Mandel, has composed an opera, Passion in Pigskin. A Yale graduate, Lydon is a member of ASCAP, AFofM local 802, and on the faculty of St. John’s University.