WRITING EDITORIALS
Talk before the Cocolink Seminar-Workshop
United Coconut Planters Bank
By Gerry Gil
Associate Editor
Manila Standard
Thank you very much for inviting me to
talk about writing editorials. I am extremely grateful because nobody ever asks
me to talk on this topic. Nobody even allows me to talk about it. When people ask me what I do and I tell them
that I write editorials, they usually turn away to look for somebody more
interesting. And some of them, before they turn away, ask: "Why aren't you
a columnist?"
Don't get me wrong. I'm not offended when
people act as if columnists are far more important than editorial writers. It
probably shouldn't be that way, but that's a fact of life in
This lesson was driven home to me more
than 30 years ago on the old Evening News. We had a history student, a cum
laude candidate no less from the University of the
Of course, things aren't this bad
today. Nonetheless, the importance of
the editorial -- and the editorial writer -- in
What the editorial is
Nobody really disputes the position that
the editorial sets forth the stance of the newspaper and its owners. The importance of the editorial -- and the
editorial -- therefore depends on the extent to which the owners of the
newspaper believe they should take stances and press these positions on the
reading public.
Newspaper owners that believe that they
have a message to disseminate forcefully will generally give a high priority to
editorials and will ensure that those who write the editorials are persons with
relatively high positions who are sensitive to every nuance of management
thinking on most public issues.
On the other hand, there are other
newspaper owners who look on the editorial as something they must have because
all other newspapers have it. Such owners are perfectly happy to have
editorials that can be categorized as: "Oh, the shame of it!" and
"Oh, the glory of it!" and "Oh!" Such editorials are likely to be written by
fairly junior people, whose prose bristles with such phrases as "We point
to with pride" or "We view with alarm."
But I am oversimplifying -- because all
management are sensitive to at least a few public
issues. Even on those questions on which they have no preferred answer, there
are answers they don't like. There are also issues on which the owners don't
have a stance but the higher ranking editors do -- and want the editorial to
reflect their positions.
What the editorial writer is
One would therefore imagine that editorial
writers, like our history major on the Evening News of 30 years ago, are happy
with their status. On the contrary, many editorial writers are not -- because
all too often, they look on the task as an unwelcome imposition.
The editorial writer as
‘wordsmith’
It is in this situation that the editorial
writer is regarded and treated mainly as a wordsmith: a person who writes
elegantly enough to package what his owners and editors want him to say --
regardless of whether he believes what he is writing.
In this view, the editorial writer is a
mercenary on permanent retainer -- something like an in-house lawyer whose
major function is to find a rationalization for what his bosses want to
do. Unfortunately, the editorial writer
seldom gets credit for justifying the positions of his bosses, who, in their
seldom questioned wisdom, believe that their biases and pet prejudices are
positions that are reasonable, logically valid, factually based and extremely
moral.
No wonder, then, that many editorial
writers feel particularly frustrated whenever they are forced to justify
positions that they themselves do not believe in.
The editorial writer as
expert
In many newspapers, there are a number of
persons who write editorials -- and often, the writer chosen is the person with
some expertise in the field.
Thus, the business editor is tapped to
write an editorial on the balance-of-payment figures, the movie editor is asked
to do an obituary-type editorial on Lino Brocka, and perhaps, a reporter or deskman who happens to
be a dropout from a department of sociology is dragooned into writing an
editorial on the results of the most recent Social Weather Stations Survey.
While there is something to be said for
this system-of-assignment-by-expertise, it carries a certain disadvantage. The
task of writing the editorial then becomes an "extra" assignment for
the staff member, who, depending on his background and writing skill, may spend
up to several hours writing the editorial.
Unless the editorial writer is writing on
a topic close to his heart and is advocating his own personal position, he is
likely to view the task as an unwelcome imposition -- and the editorial will
suffer accordingly.
Some newspapers pay their staff members
for this extra chore, but this creates another problem. Cash-strapped staff
members, regardless of their expertise, will try to retain the money-making
opportunities for themselves -- and this is bound to cause some dissension in
the staff. Further, a person who writes an editorial "just for the
money" is likely to expend the least possible effort necessary to get an
acceptable (as against an excellent) job done.
The editorial writer as rationalizer
Whether wordsmith or expert, the editorial
writer often becomes a case-builder or rationalizer,
especially where the topic of the editorial is decided on by a committee -- usually
composed of editors and senior deskmen who feel they have better things to do.
All too often, the committee comes up with
a topic but enunciates points of view that are not altogether compatible. The poor editorial writer often must go
through a lot of intellectual contortions to come up with an editorial that is
acceptable to all the committee members -- who, most of the time, would not be
able to come up with such an editorial themselves.
The editorial writer as free
agent
It is not, however, every day that the
editorial writer is told what he should write about. On many days, he is more
or less free to write what he wants -- as long as it does not contradict the
stances of the owners and editors (more liberal owners and editors are satisfied
with a situation where they can "live with" the editorial).
But even here, there are frustrations --
especially if the editorial-writer has other responsibilities. Many such
persons who sit in an editorial committee meeting hesitate to propose any
topics for fear that it will be assigned to them.
The editorial writer as
ghost-writer
No wonder, also, that the editorial writer
is considered by many (and sometimes, even by himself) to be the moral inferior
of the columnist, who, at least in theory, is writing out of his own
convictions.
The person who writes editorials tends to
look at himself as performing the rather thankless job of a ghost-writer. And,
like the ghost-writer, he feels frustrated when he writes what he doesn't quite
believe in -- and even more frustrated when his best writings (especially those
that represent the outpourings of his soul) do not carry his signature.
Writing the editorial
From time to time, I have been asked by
people who have been asked to write their first editorial how they should go
about doing it. I give a very simple answer: "Imagine that you are writing
a letter to the editor and keep it to about 65 lines."
Most letters to the editor are
commentaries on some event. They may praise or condemn the event, question the
way it has been reported, or express agreement, disagreement or doubt with the
way some commentator has evaluated it.
And this description will suffice for many
ordinary editorials -- particularly the type that "point to with pride,"
"view with alarm," or "condemn in no uncertain terms."
But if I were to go deeper into the
question, I would build my answer around the fact that the editorial sets forth
a position. The editorial need not, and
perhaps, should not take a black-and-white position -- because if the issue
were obviously black-and-white, there probably is no reason for writing an
editorial because that would be belaboring the obvious. In fact, some issues
are so complex and even ambiguous that they warrant the kind of response that I
describe as "passionate neutrality."
The editorial expresses an
attitude
Since the editorial takes a position, it
should be obvious that we are talking about a short essay that mixes values and
facts in such a way as to rationally justify the position the editorial
advocates.
More often than not, the editorial is an
extended syllogism in which the major premises (the universals) are statements
about values and the minor premises (the specifics) are statements of fact. When we have a syllogism in which the major
premise is a statement of value and the minor premise is a statement of fact,
the conclusion is the expression of an attitude. And, by and large, this is what an editorial
is: a statement of attitude toward some object -- usually a person, policy or
event.
The editorial is selective
Since the editorial combines statements of
fact with statements of value, one of the major tasks of the editorial writer
is to decide which values and facts are to enter into the editorial. Which
values are salient? Which facts are relevant?
There are several ways of approaching the
selectivity issue.
First, if we want to praise or condemn
something or perhaps endorse a policy alternative, we must select one (or more)
of the many social values as the basis for our praise or condemnation. In this
case, the editorial picks on a fact and comments on it -- and selects at least
one of many values as the basis of the commentary.
Second, we may want to enunciate and
elaborate on a value and use a recent event (fact) as the occasion (or
"peg") for the commentary. Here, the value if "pre-chosen"
and the editorial writer is merely looking for an
event that will give him an excuse to discuss the value and its implications at
greater length.
Third, we may want to present a competing
interpretation of a fact, that is, to dispute the explanation some other person
has given to a set of events. Here, we
are in effect stating that a different conceptual scheme must be used for interpreting
the event. Here, the value component may
be implicit -- we may be suggesting that the commentator we disagree with is
either dumb or less than honest. Or it can be very explicit -- as in the case
where we say that the commentator must be operating on a value framework that
is grossly distorted.