Among other things, I write editorials and opinion pieces. I admit it. I also admit that many consider that a dubious undertaking. But lost causes follow me home like sad little puppies, and when I have a firmly held opinion I’m going to write about it.
I’m not surprised by the outcome of our publisher’s informal survey of opinions about our editorial page. I hold onto the belief that most people are reasonable and are at least willing to consider another opinion if it is written in a direct and considered way.
I can also say that having written opinion pieces and op-ed columns for decades, there are many who do not. Especially if you take unpopular positions. I’ve received numerous death threats over the decades, had a guy try to kill me over a series of op-eds I wrote in the late 1980s, and been libeled a few times as well. Just goes with the territory.
Despite this I continue to write because I think there is something special about a good newspaper editorial. Not the clickbait outrage pieces, or hollow endorsements trotted out like yard signs every election cycle, but the real ones where the writer lays out an argument not just to sway minds, but to clarify the stakes, to provoke thought, and sometimes, to plant a seed of doubt in even the most hardened opinions. It’s the beating heart of a functioning democracy.
Editorials aren’t just opinion pieces, though. They stand at the intersection of free speech and civic duty. And in a time when misinformation floods social media, algorithms reward outrage, and public trust in institutions teeters, a newspaper editorial might be one of the last places left where people can slow down, read deliberately, and wrestle with big ideas.
But more than that, writing and publishing an editorial is a democratic act. It’s the voluntary engagement of a citizen with the public sphere, an offering of perspective, backed by reason, to the collective conversation. It says: I have something to say, I believe it matters, and I’m willing to put my name on it.
Molly Ivins, one of Texas’ great editorial voices, put it this way: “The act of writing itself is an act of courage. Especially when you’re speaking truth to power.” And that’s what editorials have always done at their best, challenged power, advocated change, and advanced democratic ideals.
Think of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which was essentially an extended editorial that lit a revolutionary fire in the American colonies. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, newspaper editors were local titans. They didn’t just report the news, they interpreted it, shaped it, and confronted injustice with ink-stained fingers. William Lloyd Garrison used The Liberator to call for the abolition of slavery, often at great personal risk. Ida B. Wells exposed the brutal realities of lynching in the South through editorials that history now rightly views as journalism at its finest.
Bill Moyers once said that “The press is a watchdog. Not a lapdog.” That spirit carried through the civil rights era, when editorials again served as moral beacons. The Arkansas Gazette editorial board famously supported desegregation during the Little Rock crisis of 1957—an unpopular and dangerous stance at the time. They won a Pulitzer for it, but more importantly, they modeled editorial courage, using the page to speak truth in the face of overwhelming pressure to remain silent or complicit.
Kathleen Carroll of the Associated Press noted that “An editorial is not a neutral piece. It is, and must be, an opinion rooted in facts and intended to persuade.” That public ownership of argument is what makes it a democratic act. In a democracy, the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work unless people show up, speak up, and take responsibility for their arguments. Editorials do just that. They give structure to dissent. They push beyond slogans. They turn conviction into contribution.
Today, the landscape has shifted. Fewer people read newspapers, and even fewer, sadly, trust them. Editorial pages have been cut from many local papers, and media consolidation means that independent voices are getting harder to find. Meanwhile, online, the line between opinion, propaganda, and plain nonsense is getting blurrier by the day. But that makes editorials more important, not less.
When I write an editorial, I’m not shouting into the void. I’m talking to you. I may never meet you, but still share a town, a road, or a ballot with you. I may not always get it right. But I try my best to speak clearly, back it up, and own what I say. I’m a human voice, not a brand. I’m someone saying, “Here’s what I see, and here’s why I think it matters.”
And that voice matters even more in rural America, where national media often reduces us to caricatures. A local editorial column remains one of the few places where people from all walks of life can encounter a considered argument rather than a meme or a slogan. A full thought, laid out with care. Whether it’s about broadband access, school funding, or a constitutional crisis, a local editorial invites readers to think beyond their own experience and consider the common good.
Editorials remind us that democracy isn’t just about institutions or elections. It’s about participation. It’s about people stepping forward to say this is where I stand, and I believe this matters. When someone writes an editorial, they’re practicing the kind of civic engagement that democracies need to survive.
George Orwell put it succinctly when he wrote that “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Editorials do that. They hold up mirrors. They shake the table. And sometimes, they make you uncomfortable, for all the right reasons.
Some folks say editorials don’t change anything, that writers are just shouting into the darkness. Maybe they don’t change things overnight. But over time they shape the political weather. They nudge the conversation. They give language to feelings that are hard to articulate. And they remind us that democracy is more than voting, but thinking, arguing, engaging, and growing. Editorials, at their best, are democracy with a spine.
So read them. Write them. Disagree with them. Hold them accountable. But don’t dismiss them. Because in a world increasingly dominated by noise, the editorial column is one of the last places where reason still tries to have the last word.
Disclaimer: Jim Powers writes Opinion Columns. The views expressed in this editorial are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Polk County Publishing or its affiliates. In the interest of transparency, I am politically Left Libertarian.
