The Dominion of Opinion and How to Know When You're In It

I’m glad that traditional media has competition from gate-crashers like Matt Drudge and invaluable watchdogs such as Little Green Footballs’ Charles Johnson. But I often wonder what ossified harrumphers like Los Angeles Magazine’s R.J. Smith, who earlier this year called the LGF blog “constitutionally protected hate speech,” do with their vast oceans of time between assignments.

Still, I’m sometimes struck by the naivete of fellow bloggers; those who’ve obviously never been in a newsroom yet feel confident fulminating about what they imagine goes on behind the scenes at the Los Angeles Times and similar monolithic media institutions. Insisting that all bloggers are journalists is like insisting that every home movie of baby’s birthday party should be eligible for Academy consideration.

Of late I’ve noticed a certain resentment in blog comments and newspaper letters-to-the-editors sections that opinion writers get paid for recounting their personal experiences and expressing their opinions while the complainers don’t. Perhaps because the line between blogging and journalism has been blurred these correspondents feel entitled to assert that opinion writers like me have violated some imaginary journalistic rules.

“That anti-Islam piece was a writer’s dream,” commented one, who thought my piece here the other week on immigration and Islam wasn’t “real journalism.” “No research - no original quotes - phone-call count zero. Just read the New York Times, synchronize your own prejudices, it writes itself.”

This reminded me of a plaintive cry from the L.A. Times’s letters page, about a rightwing op-ed that had dared suggest this country was founded on religious principles. “Why,” the letter writer wailed, “does the Times provide a forum for such misguided commentary?”

What the blog world needs now is a guide for the perplexed as to what an op-ed actually is. It is, first and last, an opinion - one with which you, dear reader, may well disagree. This opinion is sometimes backed up with original reporting but usually not. That’s why these pieces are also called “commentaries;” they essentially comment on some aspect of the news. The writer is almost never under any obligation to get both sides of the story.

Anyone who doesn’t understand that probably needs reminding that even their beloved traditional newspaper consists of many different sections, all of which fall under the general definition of journalism. Otherwise, these know-it-alls may begin fuming about neighborhood crime reports that omit mention of the Mideast crisis, fashion stories with no baseball stats, sports reports that lack recipes, or that the president’s state of the union address was completely ignored by the food section.

Last year, in the wake of the news about publisher Judith Regan moving to L.A., I wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed about literary life in this city. This brought an email from some woman who remembered me from my Buzz magazine years, and wanted me to know my piece had “distressed” her because I described L.A. culture “in such a limited way… It’s upsetting to me to see a writer who has lived here for so long ignore all that the city and its residents have to offer.” Then she went on to list the L.A. writers she would have mentioned that I didn’t.

What I always think, when I get these kinds of letters, is: “Then write your own f***ing 1,100-word piece.”

Oh, actually I only think that when I’m in a bad mood. On happier days I think, Well, that’s the hazard, if you’re a sensitive soul, of reading the opinion section. Eventually you’re going to come across an opinion you don’t like. That can be distressing. Even upsetting! Maybe these pieces should all be prefaced by a little warning: Read at your own risk.

PajamasMedia Special Correspondent CATHERINE SEIPP writes the weekly “From the Left Coast” column for National Review Online, a monthly column for Independent Women’s Forum and freelances other places, such as the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal op-ed pages. She previously wrote columns for: Buzz, Mediaweek, UPI, New York Press and Salon. Her work has also appeared in Reason, Penthouse, TV Guide, the National Post and Forbes.