Opinion sections are more vital than ever

Opinion sections are more important than ever in the face of ongoing attacks on free expression

In 2017, The Washington Post adopted the slogan “Democracy dies in darkness,” apparently a stance on government secrecy and the importance of journalism.

For many, the slogan now reads differently.

After a few months of scandalously heavy-handed management from Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos—especially his preventing the editorial board from endorsing a presidential candidate in 2024—the paper has lost subscribers and respect in journalism.

What has been perceived as Bezos’s support of Donald Trump has left many questioning whether he really stands by the slogan his paper adopted under his ownership. But never mind his almost flagrant support of an anti-democratic demagogue—his greatest betrayal of the slogan is his attack on the paper’s opinions section.

Bezos shared the note he sent his opinions staff in a recent tweet. It explained that going forward, the opinion pages will print articles in support and defence of “free markets and personal liberties” every day. He went further, suggesting that dissenting opinions would not be published, though opinions on other topics could be published to supplement the page's content.

While the decision isn’t surprising coming from a man who is worth nearly $200 billion thanks to so-called free markets, Bezos demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of an opinions section and of their evolving role in a digital world.

As a writer for The Silhouette, part of my job is to meet our mandate—a short two-paragraph mission statement shared with every staff member during training. The mandate explains that we are a paper by and for McMaster students.

Thus, our coverage needs to be relevant to the McMaster community, the Hamilton community and/or McMaster students. Our editorial board has generally favoured relevance to students as the most important aspect of this mandate.

But what may seem like a difficult restriction to some—I admit, some weeks are harder than others—is not arbitrary. When done right, it's what makes the opinions section valuable.

While Jeff Bezos is right that you can find just about any opinion on the internet, he fails to recognize one of the key roles of a successful opinions section in using this as a justification for his decision to publish only pro-capitalist pieces. A good opinions section or piece should be as much, if not more, about demonstrating why an issue is important to an audience as it is about convincing them of your opinion.

For The Silhouette, this means that our job is not just to provide a platform for writers to express their positions but to draw the student community's collective attention to issues that are important to us. Opinions remind their audience that they are part of something bigger.

Newspaper audiences are not collections of isolated individuals. They are student bodies, cities, provinces and countries. Opinions pages don’t exist to contribute to the never-ending discourse the internet enables. Rather, opinions sections exist to direct the shared attention of the communities they serve toward issues they ought to think about.

Whether it be tying American abortion debates to opportunities for student activism or xenophobic federal policies to the shared experience of the student housing crisis, opinions pages are an opportunity to unite a community through shared discussion. In an increasingly isolated world, this is more important than ever.

Community dies in darkness; only the shared light of our attention can keep it alive.

The Silhouette accepts requests for student contributions through our website. Help us build a community by contributing your voice.