Op-Ed Pages Getting Bloggier

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Op-Ed Pages Getting Bloggier

James Joyner | Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Henry Farrell recounts an interesting discussion he had on bloggingheads with Dan Drezner, about the longstanding norm wherein regular op-ed columnists “seem to be discouraged from mentioning each other by name when they disagree/attack each other.” They note that the norm seems to be breaking down as the op-eds “become a bit bloggier” and, indeed, many of the columnists actually start blogs.

In general, this is all to the good. I can see the justification for the previous policy, I think – that you don’t want your op-ed pages to break down into bickering between a small group of elites, and that you want to preserve the ideal of the op-ed writer as a disinterested and magisterial figure taking the pulse of the American polity, etc, etc, etc. But this also allows op-ed writers to get away with a lot of self-serving bullshit while never being called on it. A more vigorous back-and-forth of the kind we’ve being seeing is a highly imperfect corrective to that problem – but it’s certainly better than the current system where regular op-ed writers are simultaneously put on a pedestal and never subjected to the processes of fact-checking that restrain traditional journalists.

Of course, bloggers have made a mantra of “fact-checking their asses” for years but, in reality, far more people are reading the leading columnists than the average blog. So, yes, less oblique discussion of controversial topics is desirable.

About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.

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