This summer will mark the fourth anniversary of this column in this newspaper. It started when the publisher, who read my online blog, asked me, in so many words, if I wanted to go legit.
By itself, the blog is nothing more than thoughts and opinion, based on my experience.
If, however, the word “columnist” appears under the writer’s mugshot in a hard copy newspaper page labeled, “opinion,” if the only way to get to it on the newspaper’s website is through dropdown menu buttons labeled “opinion,” and “columns,” then the words of the nascent blogpost – the content – is bestowed with the blanket of time-honored journalistic legitimacy.
Further, if a consistent content delivery schedule is established, say, every other weekend, then structural guideposts are created to help the consumer understand what they’re about to consume.
If it’s just my blog, written whenever the urge hits and delivered via social media, then it’s nothing more than some guy’s whim-driven blog, competing with kitty cat videos.
The point is delivery vehicles matter.
I often receive feedback from really smart people whom I respect and admire, about my “article.” When I hear that word, I wince. Just a little. It’s not an article, it’s a column. An article is a fact-based accounting of news. A column is an opinion.
They mean well, and my guess is, if I chose to find a non-threatening way to share this fact, they’d get it immediately. For the sake of relationship preservation, I let it go. Don’t wanna be that guy. So, I’ll write a column about it. I do wanna be that guy.
The point is words matter.
I would like to think value is added to my opinion writing by my experience as a fact-gathering news reporter. In the pre-Internet Pleistocene Epoch, I was a broadcast journalist, so I didn’t write “articles,” per se, I wrote “news stories” for radio and television.
Even that word, “story,” conjures up interpretations that lead us away from the truth.
My beat was the Statehouse, where many reporters covered the same story. The facts reported in my broadcast “news story,” were the same ones in the “articles” written by my print brethren. The difference was the delivery vehicle. The “articles” appeared in a hard copy newspaper the next morning. The broadcast “news stories” emanated from my mouth into a microphone, television camera, or both.
The Internet and social media changed all that, of course.
Here’s an opinion drawn from that fact: There are a significant number of human beings who consume content from social media, who never go near a hard copy newspaper opinion page or website. Is that a judgment on their character, editorial curiosity, time management choices? Since you’re obviously not one of them, please discern your own conclusions.
The Manhattan Mercury, KMAN Radio and WIBW-TV are for-profit content delivery vehicles who earn those profits selling subscriptions or advertisements placed within the content offered to their consumers. It is a uniquely American free enterprise business model. Create wealth by defending a Constitutionally guaranteed right.
Tomorrow is National Columnists’ Day. Named in honor of World War II frontline columnist Ernie Pyle, killed by enemy fire in the battle of Okinawa on April 18, 1945. Pyle’s Pulitzer-winning wartime columns are the stuff of legend. His opinions were formed living and working alongside American G.I.’s engaged in a global struggle over tyranny and fascism. His delivery vehicle was words printed in ink on newsprint, carried by a “paper boy.”
My opinion is if we are not purposeful about investing critical thought – and the time and space it needs – it will come at the expense of our collective goodwill, further eroding our ability to discern articles from columns, fact from opinion, truth from lies.
That’s my story, er… article… uh… column… and I’m sticking to it.
Mike Matson’s column appears every other weekend in The Mercury. Follow his whim-driven blog at mikematson.com.
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April 18, 2021 at 01:00AM
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MATSON | Facts, opinions, and news media consumer discernment - Manhattan Mercury
"Opinion" - Google News
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