Editorials need more bite.

The bland output of today's editorial writers sends readers to the strident invective of columnists for guidance.

Since I eased out of the frenetic pace of Washington and retreated to an academic life in pastoral mid-America six years ago, I have had the opportunity to read more critically the work of my former colleagues who continue their labors in the vineyards of persuasive writing, editorials, and columns.

To my surprise, I have found that the major columnists have become increasingly strident, ideological, and categorical, while their more anonymous colleagues in the art of persuasion - the editorial writers - have become generally more measured, thoughtful, even-handed, and tentative.

Today most of the editorials I read in the local, state, and national press are loaded with facts, background information, and presentations on all sides of the issue. But for the most part, they seem curiously devoid of passion, and clear and direct guidance.

That seems too often to be the case regardless of the subject matter. On issues ranging from local zoning fights to questions about the U.S. role in the post-Cold War world, I too often find a bland, reasoned, and balanced presentation that leaves me without a clue as to what the Morning Sun or the Detroit Free Press or The Washington Post thinks needs to be done.

But while the editorials are blander, the columns on the op-ed page are increasingly bellicose, one-sided, and stridently ideological. This is true both on the left, where you find precious few, and on the right, where you find many.

Don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not advocating that route. Invective and name-calling, whether labeling Hillary Clinton a congenital liar or painting Newt Gingrich as a heartless monster, may make for livelier reading, but they do little to raise the level of political discourse or aid in the formulation of informed opinion.

What I fear is that left with these two alternatives on your opinion pages, readers will be more influenced by outside columnists in forming their opinions on important issues, than by the editorialist's more thoughtful institutional voice.

If the editorial writer's role is, as NCEW's statement of principles declares, "to provide the information and guidance toward sound judgments that are essential to the healthy functioning of a democracy," then turning over that function to outside columnists would be ill-advised.

Tell them what to think

I don't think editorial writers can fulfill their mission by adhering to today's prevailing notion that it is not their function to tell readers what to think, but what to think about. That notion is grounded on the assumption that if you simply provide readers with the facts, they are perfectly capable of forming their own conclusions.

If that is the case, why have an editorial page at all? Aren't providing facts, background, and analysis the mission of the news department? And if readers have all the information they need to form an opinion, why do so many of the best-informed readers turn to the editorial page for guidance?

Americans are inundated with facts and information in their workplaces and their homes. It is the paradox of our times that in the midst of all this information, the vast majority of Americans are more uncertain and less confident than at any time in recent history.

The challenge facing our readers today comes in trying to gain meaning from those facts, sort out what is really relevant to the issue at hand, and turn those facts into useful knowledge that can be applied wisely to the issue at hand. That is why the reader turns to the editorial page for help.

The editorial writer's job is to marshal the facts and arguments on all sides of the issue, analyze them, think them through to a logical and sensible conclusion, then present the finished work to the readers in a manner as clear and unambiguous and forceful and persuasive as possible.

And if the issue is important enough, please add a bit of passion to the mix. It makes for livelier reading.

NCEW member James G. Wieghart is associate professor of journalism at Central Michigan University. He is a former columnist, Washington bureau chief, and editor of the New York Daily News.