The 5Ws of editorial writing.

Editor's note: The following edited excerpts come from Vi - en bok om ledere (We: A Book About Editorials) by NCEW member Stein B. Hauglid and Stein Gauslaa, translated from the Norwegian by Espen Hauglid.

Why do newspapers have editorials? To keep the older journalists occupied, maintains one colleague. To annoy the younger journalists who have completely different attitudes and opinions than the older, says another. To maintain the generation gap, answers one with a grip on that kind of lingo.

A core of truth is in these answers. Often the older, experienced, and maybe slightly burnt-out journalists write editorials and commentaries. They have to be used for something when the legs are no longer good for racing with fire engines.

Do papers have to have editorials? No. A few newspapers don't have editorials, and many papers that have editorials might do just as well, or better, by cutting them out, or by just having editorials on the days when the editor has something to say.

Most Norwegians, like foreigners, are used to being able to divide the contents of the paper roughly in three: news, background, and opinions. The editorial is a part of the latter category, which also includes comments, analyses, and letters.

The historical justification also relates to the wish to influence. To be sure, many newspapers were founded with the singular intention of providing information, but several have a totally different goal, namely that of influencing opinion. The papers connected to political parties are examples of this, but they are not the only ones.

Although influence is still the intention behind many - perhaps most - editorials, the editorial writers must have a sober view of their power of influence. The Norwegian EU debate is a strong example of the limits of this power. Most Norwegian papers urged the people to vote for a membership in the EU. The people voted against it.

A survey among American newspaper editors cited in Journalism Quarterly shows only 3% of them thought editorials have no influence whatsoever. According to Professor Ernest C. Hynds, who conducted the survey, 87% think that their editorials help people make up their minds; 63% believe the editorials help strengthen points of view already taken, while 44% think they can make people change their minds. Obviously these responses mean many things, since the sum is well over 100%.

To assume a middle position - as editorial writers do when they feel insecure - newspaper editorials at their best should be considered small pieces in the enormous jigsaw puzzle called "the social debate" that shapes "social development."

Another argument in favor of editorials is that they tell the reader something about the paper's style and attitudes. The editorial should strike a note and tell something about attitudes that gives the reader counsel in confronting the rest of the contents. In other words, the editorial writer can have several goals when he or she is slapping the keyboard.

The very best starting point, however, is the one that an editorial writer at a large British paper expressed in a conversation: I write editorials because I think it's so incredibly funny. Besides, I am well-paid.

Writing ad libitum is not just a privilege. It gives good results as well.

The "who"

Who writes editorials in Norway? We don't know much about this, but we know a little.

A survey conducted by the Norwegian Institute for Journalism for this book shows that almost half of the editors-in-chief of the 141 papers that answered often write editorials, and that almost one-third always write editorials.

In the smallest newspapers, 41% of the editors-in-chief always write the editorial, while only 10% of the editors-in-chief of the largest papers always write the editorials. A surprisingly large number of newspapers have a separate department or group for writing editorials - as many as 28 of 66 papers.

At a surprisingly large number of papers, journalists are sent to press conferences, conventions, and the like without being obliged to write news reports in addition to any editorials or comments. As many as 29 out of 60 papers say that the correspondent writes only one or the other kind of article.

Arguing in favor of a clear division between the editorial department and the other departments in the paper is easy. Such a division creates an ethically tidy, comprehensive, and simple structure. Some journalists tell the readers what is happening in the world. Other journalists interpret and take a stand, commend and condemn, cheer and criticize.

The readers may become confused when one thing is said to be true on the editorial page, while the same thing is refuted on page 14 in the news section. But journalistically speaking it is unassailable, so what does it matter that it is incomprehensible for the readers?

Editorials are written in a slightly different way than the rest of the paper. That may also be a reason for keeping the department separate.

In the same way that journalists specialize in pure news reporting, sports, feature material, or reviews, some should be trained in editorial writing. The form is special. It is often written to fairly specific measures, and it should be relevant to the news and readable - perhaps even more readable than the news story.

Mixing things up

Even most editorial writers realize that the editorial is not the main sales argument. And as we all know, newspapers are supposed to be sold.

The solution for Norwegian papers with separate editorial departments is to have editorial writers also write columns. Then at least they fill a page each day.

Several forces work against the ideal completely independent and uninfluenced editorial department, making it an illusion. An independent editorial department presupposes an anarchist structure in the leadership of the paper that is rare.

The paper - if it is good - must be unified. That involves a certain interconnectedness between the different elements, and that in its turn implies that the departments have to work with the same basic attitudes and goals.

Admittedly, a few papers emphasize their schizophrenia, but how successful that is remains arguable.

It doesn't turn out well if the reader is told in the editorial that the news covering the front page and five or six pages on the inside is really unimportant and hardly deserves the ink. If the paper has developed its own editorial Jurassic Park, this may easily happen. If the distance between the editorial writers and the rest of the staff is too great, the consistency may well be weakened. But short of establishing a small army of editorial writers, what is one supposed to do?

The most obvious is the choice that has been made by many: Assign one to be responsible for the editorial writing and several to combine writing editorials with other chores - comments, analyses, and pure news reporting. The first two are uncomplicated in relation to writing editorials; the third is not.

It is no doubt an advantage for the editorial writer to know as much as possible about what he or she is writing about, but a certain distance from the news report is usually an advantage as well.

As the editorial is unsigned, the reader has no knowledge of who is writing. That should imply it is OK to mix things up a bit. What the readers don't know won't harm them.

However, the soul of the paper and the integrity of the journalist are at stake. For the paper it is important to create conditions that make it easy for the journalists to be neutral observers and reporters. Having to take a stand toward the cases they are writing about may easily lead to another attitude toward objectivity than what is to be desired.

Journalists should know they have the potential at least of being objective.

Of course their evaluation of news will be colored by everything - growing up, schooling, their own and the paper's political opinions. Colleagues, friends, and family often force the journalist to take a stand. The paper's leadership should contribute in the opposite direction.

In other words, compromises are due. There are strong arguments against both the "ideal" model with separate and strongly isolated editorial writers and the "dubious" one where every Tom, Dick, and Harry writes editorials.

No ideal model for the writing of editorials is suitable to all Norwegian papers. Money resources, human resources, the general organization of the paper, and purely practical circumstances can be decisive.

What is important is creating attitudes toward editorial writing. Here as elsewhere in journalism, one must know what one is doing and the consequences of the choices one makes.