Guidelines for Columnists

By Gene Foreman June 2001

News organizations expect columnists to deliver provocative opinions and to use their distinctive voices in analyzing the personalities and issues in the news. A good columnist has a special relationship with the reader—you may love or hate the columnist, but you always want to know what he or she has to say. A columnist challenges the reader, has an edge, is bold and blunt, conveys energy, always engages and entertains. To carry out this demanding role, columnists are given more privileges than their mere-mortal colleagues: They are given wide latitude to choose their topics, and they are entitled to consultation over anything but the most innocuous changes in their copy. Unfortunately, many in the news business foolishly interpret this wide latitude as carte blanche for the columnists and commentators to do whatever they want. This was illustrated in the Richard Jewell case, in which columnist Dave Kindred of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote a piece drawing parallels between Jewell’s case and that of convicted serial murderer Wayne Williams. Although Kindred didn’t say it in so many words, the column left the unmistakable impression that Jewell was as guilty as Williams. Copy editors who questioned the fairness of the Kindred column before publication were rebuffed with response: “It’s a Kindred column.” As if that swept away any complaint. Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel explain the responsibility of the commentator in their book The Elements of Journalism: “The editorial pages of the newspaper, the opinion columnist, the talk show, and the point-of-view magazine essay have every right to be opinionated. That’s their mission. But if their authors want to call themselves journalists, then it follows that they should not misrepresent the facts – that they should hold to the same standards of truthfulness or allegiance to public interest as any other part of the profession.” Columnists can and must be edited. Bob Giles, curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, says editors must insist that columns meet the test of accuracy and fairness. This causes a certain tension between columnist and editor, he acknowledges. “This tension is part of the natural conflict between the values of creativity, opinion, style, humor, compassion, story-telling and the other qualities that give the columnist his or her special place in the pages of the newspaper, and the editor, who must stand accountable for the credibility, the accuracy and the fairness of what is published every day.” So what protocols should columnists have to observe? Here are some suggestions: They have to observe the law. Although expressions of opinion can be defended against libel suits, statements of fact in columns get no such privilege. They have to do their own reporting. Although the columnist is expected to express an opinion, he or she has an obligation to first establish what the facts are. The reporting in columns should be subject to the same editing rigor as any other reporting in the paper. Columnists’ sources, like those of other reporters, need to have first-hand knowledge of the facts. They can’t express an opinion about something that is a matter of fact. Here’s a high-profile example: During the eight-month period between Bill Clinton’s denial of an affair with Monica Lewinsky and his ultimate admission of an improper relationship, numerous columnists said, in effect, he’s lying. That they were ultimately proved correct does not mean that the columnists were behaving ethically. Whether Clinton was lying or not was a matter of fact, and the columnists could not prove their assertion. So they were not morally entitled to say it. They have to be fair. Even though expressions of opinion about people can be harsh in columns, cheap shots – those in which the columnist stretches the facts – must be avoided. Giles cautions against columns that portray individuals purely as villains and heroes. They have to avoid endorsing candidates and joining news-making organizations. To be an honest critic, the columnist must remain independent, avoiding even the appearance of a vested interest. The distinguished conservative columnist George Will once coached Ronald Reagan in 1980 for a debate against his Democratic opponent and then, without revealing his own role, praised Reagan’s performance in the debate. Like other journalists, columnists must be observers, not participants. They have to keep their personal disputes out of their columns. If columnists have problems with airlines that bumped them off flights, or with police officers who gave them tickets, let them resolve the disputes the way ordinary citizens must. It is an abuse of power to wield the column in a private fight.