Back in the day, when I would read the printed newspaper, I would come across many news articles, and then a section, in the back of one of the sections, that was called Opinions (or Op-Eds or something like that). Because of the physical structure of the newspaper, if I wanted to see the opinion pieces, I would thumb through the pages until I clearly came to the section I was seeking. This is no longer the case with digital newspapers.
I currently read a lot of my news from two main aggregators: Apple News and Hvper. On Apple News, it will bunch all the news sources together, and it will let me know which source is behind the article. When I open the article, if it is an opinion piece, it will say in, I believe, regular font, at the top of the article that it is an opinion piece, and give the person’s biography who wrote it. I see it only when I am searching for it, which often happens when I believe that headline is outrageous and that often is when the piece disagrees with what I believe or what I would expect to be a relatively neutral telling of the story.
I believe that this is severely damaging the trust that we have in news agencies. When I read an article by CNN that really isn’t by CNN reporters, but is an op-ed piece, and it speaks in a highly-emotional, highly-biased tone, then I may start to believe that CNN itself is highly emotional and highly biased. The same for the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other outlets that many Americans used to trust and now are starting to doubt.
I think one of the easiest tech fixes is to just separate the news stories from the opinion stories in the news apps. I think this would bring the previous physical separation that more clearly informed us whether what we were reading were an attempt at being objective at the news or was trying to give space to people to express their opinions.
I think another, and more effective fix, could be to create sub-brands or separate brands for the news articles and the opinion pieces. CNNO for CNN-Opinion, or maybe the New York Discourse, or something that delineates the two. I believe this would not only help the readers like myself in knowing the difference, but could also help the writers remember to stick more strictly to the principles of each discipline. Right now, even the objective articles are starting to let opinion seep into their prose.
I believe that with small tweaks, we can shift the news cycle into being more aligned with what I believe is its purpose: informing us on the events of the day, and providing dialogue-provoking opinions on those events.