The person on the other end of the phone was a Harvard-educated former marketing professional who is well-informed on current events. So I was a bit surprised at her reaction when, in passing, I mentioned something about the difference between news stories and columns. ”Huh?” she said. ”How do you tell them apart?”
Well, at least she’s in good company.
My three months in the Ombud chair have convinced me that there is a great gap between what newspapers presume readers know about the news/column difference and what they actually know. It may be an age-old problem, but in times like these – when emotionally charged stories (pedophile priests, Middle East) dominate both news and commentary – the misunderstanding can undermine reader trust in new ways.
All too often complaints received here begin by charging the Globe with biased reporting and proceed to lambaste a columnist for opinions recently expressed. The offended reader has no idea that delivering fact-based opinion is precisely what a columnist is supposed to do.
The confusion is understandable, especially when it comes to columns on the front of news sections such as City & Region. After all, the only things that set those columns apart from the surrounding news articles are some subtle (to the reader’s eye) design and typographical clues.
How are readers to know that when they see the writer’s name in 18-point type, it automatically means that what follows is a column, and thus was written under entirely different – and much looser – rules of journalism?
Longstanding tradition makes it obvious, you say? Not to new readers, certainly, and, experience shows, not to many others.
So, with that in mind, a brief tutorial:
The Globe has more than two dozen staff columnists; most are veteran reporters who competed hard for the coveted spots. Their topics cover everything from politics to home repair.
Columns appear throughout the paper. Some are anchored in specific sections, such as Business or City & Region. Others, such as this one, appear on the page opposite the editorials. This op-ed page, as it is called, also offers columns by outside writers. Note the ”Opinion” label at the top.
No matter where a column appears, its mission is this: to weave fact and opinion in an informative, entertaining, and sometimes provocative way. By contrast – and there could be no more fundamental difference – a news story is supposed to be limited to facts. No opinion allowed.
At some papers, reader advocates have urged that all columns be more clearly labeled as opinion, but no paper I know of has gone that far. (For the record, the Globe is not inclined to lead the way.) Instead, papers rely on typography and design to make the distinction. But for many readers the signals can be confusing, too subtle, or both. Consider:
Columns almost always run with an uneven right-hand margin (What! You’ve never noticed?) and frequently start with an oversized first letter. But so do many news feature stories.
Some columns have titles – National Perspective, for example, or Boston Capital – but some don’t.
A good way to identify a column is by the oversized byline, but they come in at least two styles: one used on the op-ed page (like on this column) and one used elsewhere.
A regular reader may identify a column by recognizing the writer, because some (such as the City & Region columnists) write columns only. But in other departments, such as Sports, writers can move between column and news writing.
Placement down the left side of the page can be a good clue, but that, too, is unpredictable; some columns ”float.”
One surefire way to identify a column is by the small sketch of the writer that appears by the byline. But only a handful of Globe columnists have this handy, high-profile accoutrement.
No wonder readers are sometimes confused.
What to do? There is a relatively minor fix that would ease, if not solve, the problem. It doesn’t involve radical change. In fact, it’s almost too simple.
The Globe could – and should – slightly expand the italicized note that provides a writer’s e-mail address at the end of each piece, adding the fact that the writer is a columnist. Years ago, such a notation was routine, and the device is still (wisely) used in the Sports section. (To wit: Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.)
At least then readers who know that columnists live by different rules will appreciate the opinions offered, rather than be offended by what, to the untrained eye, is taken as biased reporting.
