Welcome to The Future of Journalism, a podcast from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
I'm Rosmus Nelson, director of the Institute. In this episode, we're looking at the role of opinion writing within journalism,
including the plays of opinion journalism, specifically in the news media,
in a world where many of us have many different ways of expressing our opinions and reading other's opinions, including in social media.
To discuss this and more, I'm joined today by Karen Axia.
Karen is a Washington Post columnist writing on international affairs, culture and human rights issues.
She previously worked for the Associated Press and joined the Post in 2014, first as a digital producer in the opinion section,
later as Global Opinions editor, where amongst other things, she added that Jamal Khashoggi,
before he was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, she's won numerous awards for her work and has written recently about many issues,
including missing white girl syndrome, a formative social justice, white backlash and much more.
As I wrote to her when inviting her to come on the podcast.
To be honest, I'm personally kind of fatigued with opinion journalism and our research from the Reuters Institute suggests much of the public is,
too, and feels there is far too much opinion in the news. But I would like to have a renewed appreciation of the genre and its values,
and I can't think of a better way to do that and to learn more from Karen about how she sees the value of the genre.
Karen, welcome and thank you for being with us today. Thanks for having me.
Erasmus, this will be this will be fun and interesting conversation. Great.
Let's make it interesting, let's maybe start from the top.
I mean, if you if a reader asked you to explain the difference between opinion journalism and news reporting, how would you respond to that question?
Yeah, it's a good question. And I think one that we within our industry need to remind ourselves of.
So from a I think a very basic standpoint, news journalism often is supposed to be unbiased.
It's supposed to take in all of the different sides of a particular issue.
And the reporter or writer isn't supposed to clearly have a bias or an opinion or
make value judgements on the information that they're that they're reporting.
Often their job is to collect the opinions and the viewpoints in the analysis of others and
then and then put that together for a basically a the basic answering the questions of the who,
what, when, where, why, and all of that.
It's others jobs to perhaps interpret what that news story or negative information or that new development means in a broader context,
but at a very nuts and bolts basic level. I think that's what that's what news reporting is.
So when it comes to opinion journalism, I think opinion journalism, we are in in that sphere,
we are building upon what the news gathering is and we see the news gathering and then we have more freedom to put that into a broader context.
Right. So a reporter reports man bites dog.
And that is that is just the facts. There's no value judgement about it.
On the opinion journalism side, we might say man bites dog again.
But here's why this matters or here's why this doesn't matter.
Or here's why the increased rates of man or man men biting dogs is is why our society is about to collapse in the apocalypse.
And you know what I mean. So that's that's way beyond the bounds of what a news reporter is supposed to do.
So I think at a very basic level, like reporters gather the news curated and they do frame it in a way.
But again, the the personal judgements, the value judgements, the moral judgements by the author,
by the reporter are left out and opinion journalists are able to, again,
build off of that news gathering and then add judgements, framing, context, illumination,
and perhaps push it forward and give the space to even ask more questions, perhaps to build on that.
But I believe that solid opinion journalism. Is built on solid news gathering,
I think the to feed off of each other and we as opinion journalists couldn't do what we do if it wasn't for great news reporting.
Would it be fair to say that what you describe is.
In part, opinion writers doing the things that news reporters might turn to sources for, provide analysis that interprets the events of the day,
provide moral judgement of the events of the day that in a sense,
these are journalism taking on a role that news reporters primarily would ask sources to play.
Yeah, I think that's that's in some case true and you know, news reporters are often turning to experts,
to academics, to to doctors, to to specialists to get there, to get their interpretation.
Now, I think what is interesting about opinion journalism today is that there is more space for even those experts
or academics or analysts to be able to more broadly explain their views rather than just being reduced to,
you know, a line or two in a quote in a piece. Right.
So and also and I think this is one thing that people tend to not appreciate or understand very often.
Opinion journalists particularly I mean, The Washington Post, very often we were reporters.
We do know how to gather information as well.
And often we come to journalism.
You know, we've we've had our beats. We've had our news reporting beats. And often that's how over time we've built up the sources in the networks.
And, you know, we're not claiming expertise. At the end of the day, we are writers,
but we do over time build up a certain wealth of of knowledge in our particular areas of interest that we do draw upon.
So this idea, that opinion journal is good opinion journalism. I'll say good people in journalism also has an element of reporting.
I do reporting for from my columns, my my colleagues, Catherine Rampell, a great reporter for The New York Times.
And often, you know, you see in her columns writing on the economy that she, too, is reporting and going out and seeking facts as well.
It's just that we are given the space to be able to organise the information differently, reframe and add voice style and frankly,
a bit of personality perhaps, and sometimes to make things a bit more human and relatable so that people can digest digest the news a little easier.
Other really interesting to hear a bit more from you on one of the things you just highlighted, which is that, you know, with social media,
with blogs and personal websites, with a bewildering array of newsletters,
including from people who aren't themselves journalists but experts or or other individuals,
it sounds like a lot of what you describe opinion journalists offering is being offered in abundance by many other actors,
including actors that journalists would often turn to as sources,
whether because they're experts, whether because there are authoritative institutions,
whether they are people who have lived experience and who are narrating that and sharing the public.
If there is such an abundance of opinion and so many different ways to sort of share opinions and analysis with white audiences.
What is the value of opinion from news publishers specifically? Why would organisations that I think often are committed to the idea of seeking truth
and reporting it as a sort of core of their identity and their purpose in the world?
Why it's important that they specifically invest also in opinion journalism?
Yeah, look, one thing one thing people have to realise in general is that we are we are selling a product.
We are a business. And opinion journalism is part of the journalism information products that an institution like the Post of the Times is offering.
I think that I mean, two things.
I think that opinion journalism, again, going back to the fact that I think great opinion journalism is often based on reporting,
based on still talking to people, still based on getting as close to the story as possible.
That there is an element of what institutions provide is that, you know, I can say, well, my story,
my institution, first of all, gets me the the, you know, financial runway to be able to do the reporting,
to be able to I have a editors copy editors lines of basically quality control
that that perhaps a lone blogger on a platform who's who's also having to,
you know, churn out a whole bunch of pieces,
doesn't have two or three or four or five different pairs of eyes on a particular piece just doesn't have.
So I think part of what we're offering is saying that, like, look, you see this one opinion piece and yes,
maybe as my by-line on it, but really in reality, maybe six people's labour has gone into that.
So you can expect that there's a certain level of quality in that.
And I think that's also true for for news reporting as well. And so that is that is the advantage to being with a large institution.
Now, that said, I mean, I think it's also just a part of being part of a larger team helps you to sharpen your arguments.
I see a lot of lazy, mediocre.
Writing and thoughts and plenty of scandals, honestly, where people just say, you know what?
Did anybody else look at that? Who did who did they think would think that that was a good idea before hitting click and publish?
And and you see a lot of that. I think a lot of that is probably why a lot of people start to lump us all in with that group.
But honestly, I mean, I think for me, one huge, huge, huge, huge advantage and benefit and frankly,
privilege that I recognise I have is that there is there is so much that goes behind the scenes of making an opinion piece.
I'm constantly checked on my facts, checked on my sources, checked on my even like,
am I being a is this a fair characterisation or is this fair language to use and and being able to debate those ideas around?
So I again, would say I think maybe private institutions,
maybe I've talked about this with other colleagues who are kind of in the opinion journalism industry,
perhaps we can do a better job of explaining to people just like what the literal value of the product that they're getting.
Like. I think some news organisations have started adding not just the author's by-line and the reporter's by-line,
but edited by credits some I've seen some places that even put a price tag to how much it costs to produce X, Y, Z piece of investigative journalism.
I think perhaps you could do a little more to signal just how much work goes into into producing journalism, whether it's opinion or news.
That being said, I agree. I mean, it does.
There is a lot of just lazy, uninformed takes out there.
And I think readers, I think there could be so much more to be done with trying to educate on what makes a valuable op ed,
what makes it valuable pieces of journalism, what makes a persuasive essay.
But but again,
I will say that just because something is labelled an opinion journalism doesn't mean don't forget that like journalism is actually happening.
There is fact checking. There is there should be fact checking. There should be a clear sense that that writer,
that author has at least acknowledged or or engaged with the other side to the argument, even if they don't agree.
And but, yeah, a strong a strong point of view and and a certain voice, I think, to it.
And it's it's not easy to do. It's it's it's not a it's not an easy thing to do it consistently and do.
But it's interesting, I mean, I think one perhaps prejudiced a criticism of some opinion journalism could be that it cynically could
be interpreted as a cheap and predictable alternative to expensive and unpredictable original reporting.
And that, in particular, if some of the opinion writers in a title, you know,
hold very predictable points of view that may be aligned with the views of many of the core readers,
that it's an sort of easy way to keep hardcore,
loyal readers happy by sort of giving them just more of the same and very few surprises and very little that the readers the wrong way.
But what I hear you telling me is that really what you see is the value here is that unlike a sort of a,
you know, a situation in which a private citizen,
Nelson, expresses his views online, which is entirely of his own account, and no one sort of stands by him or invested in him.
When Karen Attiya writes for The Washington Post, you know,
it's a job and you're a professional and you have the backing of an institution that invests in your work and stands by your
work and has skin in the game in the sense that you have skin in the game and that your professional reputation is on the line.
But the Post has skin in the game as well, in the sense that the Post is putting its name on on what you publish is out.
Is that a fair interpretation of what you're saying? Yeah, absolutely.
So then, you know, then that that leads to the bigger questions of, you know, who news institutions decide to invest in and stand by.
And and I'm sure, you know, I have I have, you know, colleagues throughout the energy who might not always agree with with what?
With what I say. But but I think I think the task is to is, you know, I'm I'm on the younger side.
I'm a daughter of West African immigrants.
I sometimes I get people who react to me who say, oh, I didn't expect you to be at The Washington Post like that.
I don't quote unquote look the part which is very often an older, older white male.
Right. So I think to one big advantage,
I think in the opinion sphere now is that we are seeing so many more voices that traditionally were left out and not just left out,
but actively excluded from these institutions and from these pages whose opinions were not sought after.
His opinions were, and viewpoints and expertise and knowledge were disregarded.
So I think that I think in many ways, especially as the U.S., we've seen so much over the last several years with with black lives matters,
with with more push for social justice, climate justice, I think there's a realisation that,
hey, maybe we've been listening to the wrong people for a very long time.
And, you know, as we have here in the States, you know, people who are who are looking at what's happening with, say,
access to access to reproductive health and back to the climate and, you know, kind of jokingly saying,
well, maybe we should have been listening to women of colour this whole time. And many of us are like, you think, all right, great.
Let us have the mic. I don't know if there's something to be said for multiple systems falling apart.
And only now, you know, indigenous people, black people, people of colour are being given the mic because things seem like they're falling apart.
But, you know, that's a topic for another day. But again, I think that there is there is value to the fact that we have, frankly,
frankly, a bit more democracy in the sense that there's room for more voices.
Does it mean the discourse is as neat and organised as perhaps it used to be when the same gatekeepers were in charge?
No, but I don't particularly see that as a horribly bad thing.
I again, see that the gates are are opening up ever so slightly.
But I think that's better than than basically having one or two groups, the same voices perhaps dominating our discourse.
I mean, I think it's pretty clear for anyone who takes the sort of historical record seriously and has ever
bothered to do content analysis that many news media historically have been produced by affluent,
privileged white men like myself about affluent,
privileged white middle men like myself, and for affluent, privileged white men like myself in much of the world,
and in case one didn't have enough white men in all the news,
then you could also turn to the opinion pages and get another serving of the same types of voices speaking up.
And I mean, I think you offer at a very hopeful, but perhaps also quite charitable interpretation of how much that has changed.
I mean, you've spoken publicly often about the sort of pushback against what I think you've called the interpretive cloth's,
the sort of foreign correspondents and think tankers were tasked with explaining foreign events to white Americans.
Essentially, how much progress do you feel that the American news industry in this case has made in giving the mic to other
voices on the opinion pages and the ones that are already so prominently featured in the Daily News reporting?
Yeah, sure, it was is a good way to put it, like we have a there's a lot of work to be done, a lot it's there's still so much more to be done.
And look, I. I think and have said and we'll keep saying, just having representation, it's a step,
but it's not enough, I would absolutely like to see numbers of writers,
of editors of colour that represent more accurately what are national or global demographic really is,
you know, speaking to somebody who's from the sort of more kind of international diaspora community.
When, you know, I'm called a minority, I'm like, well, actually, when it comes to the scope of the world, the minority on this call.
Yeah. You know, but but it's about power, right? It's not about it's not about, you know, lack of of of intelligence or expertise.
It's about, frankly, white men holding the power and the keys to the keys to the kingdom of this discourse.
So frankly, there's evidence that actually in newsrooms that diversity has actually gotten worse over the last 10 to 20 years.
And so now, you know, we've seen since since the George Floyd protests and and all that,
there have been a lot of promises and a lot of rhetoric, a lot of restructuring and and hiring and which is great.
At the same time. What needs to be seen and what needs to happen is that the power needs to be shared,
frankly, that there needs to be white men who are willing to step back,
give up power, take up a little less space so that those of us who also have knowledge and also have skills and expertise can help.
And frankly, you know, can can help us do our jobs better.
I don't look at it as some sort of luxury. I don't look at it as some sort of, like, nice thing to put on the brochure.
I look at it. It's a direct impact on the quality of our work, frankly, news that's produced only for by like white rich men.
I don't think that's a quality product because it doesn't accurately serve it doesn't adequately serve the readership.
And to a certain extent, maybe some people are turning off their ears because they don't see themselves represented in these pages.
They don't see people who've come from backgrounds or they didn't go to Ivy League schools or where they are first generation immigrants.
They don't see that. So they're perhaps tired of the pages for different reasons than you are for the
fact that they feel like these institutions aren't even trying to cater to them.
And so I think to an extent, that's that's a part of the huge problem is and which, you know,
those of us who are in position, I think for me, for even for my writing in my reporting,
I hope that people can feel seeing those who who come from the communities that I come from and
even some of the communities that I don't come from but that I know have been not served well,
that I hope not. I hope it's my job. Again, it's not a luxury.
It's my job to serve them as well.
So so I think that that gets to a different sort of levels of failures when it comes to journalism and opinion journalism.
Who haven't we serve, who have we refuse to serve all this time.
And now that people are more aware and demanding to be served, it's our job to do it.
I mean, I would just say that there are reams of research, you know, that document, the problems you describe,
that there are many parts of the public who don't feel represented in the news media,
who don't feel that the news media understand their lived experience,
who don't feel that the news media respects and reflects, you know, people like them and like their communities.
And I don't think we can say that opinion journalism is entirely innocent of all of that.
I mean, I know that about half a century ago, John Oakes, who created the first op ed page of The New York Times,
wrote that he felt the newspaper most effectively fulfils its social and civic responsibilities by challenging authority,
acting independently and inviting dissent.
I mean, as vote, a cynic might say that in practise, opinion journalism sometimes end up amplifying authority,
giving a platform for those who already have power and only percent dissent within
the sort of stale repartee of sort of predictable Left-Right political positions.
I mean, why do you think it's been so difficult if it is so for opinion journalism to sort of pursue the principles that have
been put so clearly by yourself and other generations of journalists who care about the importance of journalism,
of opinion craft?
Yeah, I think that there's there's definitely, again, a culture sort of dogma of journalism, and it's called the sort of idea of both sides left,
right, black, white, and that somehow we're supposed to be we're supposed to pretend that we're all neutral,
that we have this view from nowhere, which honestly, given the power asymmetries in between communities, between various social groups,
racial groups, is simply the ability to be neutral on the sandbaggers is a luxury that only the privileged can afford.
And I think if we look back to history, particularly the civil rights history in the US,
that there's a very strong tradition, for instance, of the black press,
which not only covered lynchings, civil rights leaders, movements that the white press did not,
but also used those pages to forcefully advocate for for justice.
So I think when we when we do talk about I think it's very easy to talk about journalism, big J,
big tent journalism without also understanding and and disentangling that at least again, at least in this country,
there has always been a tradition of advocacy of of columnists who have used their platforms to, for instance,
go into into communities and and report on them and then advocate for the policies that would help those communities that,
you know, they spent time with.
So I guess I again, I think that what we do need is, first of all, I think even as within us, as an industry, to so clearly,
like elucidate the standards that we have should have even sometimes I find myself thinking that it seems like news reporters also have this.
That sends that opinion journalism is just, you know, waking up one day and just having thoughts and putting them out there,
but but at least, you know, for me and the writers that I've worked with, it is it is a rigorous it is still a rigorous process.
And we are thinking about how do we how do we help people?
Digest Contextualise, I think a lot of readers,
a lot of people are looking to to understand how they should think about the news that's coming their way, how they should organise their thoughts.
And me personally, I can only speak for myself. I often write in a way that says I don't necessarily have all the answers.
What I'm doing is I'm I, too, am processing the different sides of an event of of a certain person's statements and trying to make sense of it.
And I'm inviting you as a reader along that journey with me.
I eventually will figure it out, figure it out together. That's just personal.
You know, my my my style.
But I look, it's it's it's I think we as humans, we as humans want to know other humans think, oh, we like to get inside, inside, inside their brains.
But, you know, I think for me, you know, I at least can promise to people who read me that and I have done the homework,
I have done as much reading as much, speaking to people as I possibly can under deadline.
Mind you, I think you should appreciate that we don't often give ourselves two to three weeks to think about what we should think about.
The Facebook outage happened yesterday. Our jobs are to try to come up with something usually pretty quickly.
So but yeah, we're all part of this process of kind of understanding and processing and organising and making sense of of this world.
And we're not always going to get it right.
I have I've had to even, you know, have to revisit my positions on certain things in the past publicly and being able to say,
you know what, I didn't quite look at this correctly that time.
Here's how I'm involved in it. And I wish journalists, more journalists had more courage to do that.
I also think that I do think I wish there was more, as you said, raspiness quality.
I wish there's more courage, frankly, to to go against established dogma and to to really challenge authority,
to not just sit and take down without, you know, critique criticism of what people in power say.
And I count people in power is not just politicians, but frankly, frankly, I think when I wrote something criticising Beyonce,
I think I got a lot of messages of people asking whether or not I was like digitally OK because they were so afraid of her fanbase.
You know, that that goes and silences criticism.
So I think our job again, and not just is opinion journalists, but I, I really am guided by the fact that our job is to hold the power to account.
And I would like to see more of that instead of I think what we're seeing sometimes, which is cosying to power being adjacent to power.
And I got it. It's it's attractive and it's it's got it's a particular currency and in a certain way of doing things in the journalism world.
But but I think our job is, as the saying goes, is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
And I think for for opinion journalism, we have a special runway to be able to say,
yeah, this person X of importance said this or does this, but it's not right.
It's not right. It's not true. It's not it's harmful.
And we also have the power to say this afflicted person or afflicted community deserves support, deserves there's more power in their own lives.
So I'm pretty sure if you have to say I'm pretty kind of black and white when it comes
when it comes to that and I choose poetry stories I'm not interested in amplifying,
just sort of lazily amplifying folks to who already have the power.
You already have the platform. What's more interesting are those who don't and and how to, I guess,
trying to balance the power as much as we can a little bit, if that all makes sense.
As opinion journalist, if I can help tell the story of somebody who's whose story might not get out
there because the city or the school board or the police union has more allies,
more friends, more money,
if I can help balance that power a little bit during opinion journalism and tell people this person is who you should be paying attention to,
then I feel like I've done my job. Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
I can't think of a better place to end than with what is one of my personal favourite descriptions of the purpose of journalism.
I'm so glad that you that you highlighted that.
Our guest today was Karen Atai, columnist at The Washington Post, made up of equal parts curiosity, courage, humility and a commitment to reporting.
Karen, thank you so much for joining us.
Make sure to follow our podcast channel and Spotify or Apple podcast so you don't miss the next episode if you don't want
to miss inducements to subscribe to our weekly newsletter by clicking the link on our Twitter buya or on our home page.
Thank you again for joining us and thanks for listening to the future of journalism.
I'm Rasmus Nielsen. We'll be back soon.