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Herbert Bayard Swope of The New York Evening World invented the op-ed in 1921 as “a catchall for book reviews, society boilerplate, and obituaries.” He wrote: It occurred to me that nothing is more interesting than opinion when opinion is interesting, so I devised a method of cleaning off the page opposite the editorial, which became the most important in America...and thereon I decided to print opinions, ignoring facts.
On January 22, come to the Y to hear both David Shipley, op-ed editor, and letters editor Thomas Feyer of the New York Times provide tips and tricks to getting your name and ideas in print (you get $450 if they publish your piece!), as well as discuss whether op-eds shape opinion or are merely preaching to the converted. Bone up first with Shipley’s 2004 article in which he defines the op-ed section:It’s sometimes easiest to define it in the negative. Op-Ed is different from the editorial page in that it does not represent the views of anyone in the editorial division, even its own editors. It is different from letters in that it is not a venue to debate articles that have appeared in The Times. It is different from the columnists in that, well, the columnists do their own thing.
These differences are important because Op-Ed, in some measure, is shaped by its neighbors. The Op-Ed editors tend to look for articles that cover subjects and make arguments that have not been articulated elsewhere in the editorial space. If the editorial page, for example, has a forceful, long-held view on a certain topic, we are more inclined to publish an Op-Ed that disagrees with that view. If you open the newspaper and find the editorial page and Op-Ed in lock step agreement or consistently writing on the same subject day after day, then we aren’t doing our job.
Since The Times began printing op-eds in 1970, the Grey Lady has featured such political luminaries as Madeleine Albright, Al Gore, and Donald Rumsfeld. John McCain wasn’t so fortunate. Not all opinions come in as prose, though: John Ashbery wrote a poem (”Infomercial 2”) and Dave Eggers drew a diagram (”Thanksgiving at Dan and Jane’s”).
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