Who we are and what we do.

Survey of editorialists shows little evidence of left-wing bias or an inclination to fly by the seat of the pants.

In a new year's editorial informing readers that his paper no longer considered having a staff-produced editorial on its opinion page every day to be essential, St. Paul Pioneer Press editorial page editor Ronald D. Clark confessed that writing simply to fill space is "a dirty little secret of our craft. When there's a hole to fill and you're an hour from deadline, you suddenly find you have opinions on topics you knew little or cared little about."

That's a typical editorial writer's knee-jerk observation backed up by no credible research. The fact is, American editorial page editors do not just grab issues to fill space or turn out a quick editorial by throwing a couple of opinions onto a [TABULAR DATA FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED] news story - at least not very often. It says so right on page 78 of my graduate thesis.

I would have agreed with my brother editorialist before I began looking into this issue last summer. In fact, it was to prove my hypothesis that editorial page editors in general fly by the seat of their pants that I undertook a research project on the factors that influence editorial page policy to complete my master's degree at the University of South Florida. That, and to be able to respond to House Speaker Newt Gingrich's slander that we're all a bunch of "socialists" cramming our leftist views down people's throats.

My survey of 250 NCEW members with the title of editorial page editor, or deputy or associate editor, disproved Clark's - and my - theory about the "dirty little secret" of editorial writing. Of course, self-administered surveys aren't foolproof, since respondents can slant their replies to make themselves look better.

But the assurance of anonymity partly compensated for that face-saving tendency. And the questionnaire approached the issue in subtle ways. For example, on a scale of 1-to-5 from little/none to a great deal, respondents averaged 3.37 in ranking the importance of independent research in crafting their editorials, with 83% ranking it at 3.0 or higher. And 79% said they take time to polish their work, with a 3.17 average on the 1-to-5 scale.

If editorial page editors are captives of routines that force them to grab issues off the shelf to fill up space, I assumed that would be reflected in their attitudes about their effectiveness and their job satisfaction. But both came out with fairly high ratings.

Asked to rate on a 1-to-5 scale their effectiveness at influencing public opinion, they averaged 3.5, with 94% rating it 3.0 or higher. Similarly, asked their "effectiveness at staying on top of the issues," the 1-to-5 scale ranking was 3.61.

As to job satisfaction, 92% gave "satisfaction with the process by which you produce editorials" a 3.0 or higher on the 1-to-5 scale. The overall personal satisfaction with their opinion pages was a healthy 3.7.

The project updated the demographic profile of editorialists provided by G. Cleveland Wilhoit and Dan W. Drew in 1989; theirs covered all editorial page staffers, not just the top editors as this one did. (See Figure 1.) In general, it showed the average editorial page editor has these qualities:

* White male, age 49.

* Married with 1.7 children.

* Earns $55,000 a year.

* College graduate.

* Protestant.

* Works for chain-owned paper of just over 100,000 daily circulation.

* Has been writing editorials for 13 years.

Women hold 29% of the top editorial page jobs, but only 3% of the total represent ethnic minorities. Formal education averages 17.09 years, with 44% holding a master's degree.

Politically, the editorialists classify themselves far from the "socialist" label applied by Gingrich. On a 1-to-10 scale of conservative to liberal, the average response was 5.9, slightly to the left of center. Similarly, the editors judged their newspaper to be just a bit closer to center, 5.58, on the same 1-to-10 scale.

Figure 2. Work routines

Average work week                               49.15 hours
Average staff size                              4.92
Average pages per weekday                       1.85
Average pages per Sunday                        2.46
Average number editorials by editor per day     1.49
Average number editorials per week              6.68
Average number of columns by editor per week    0.53
Average time per editorial on research          1.67 hours
Average time per editorial on writing           1.55 hours
Average time per day on administrative duties   2.07 hours
On layout/proofing                              1.30 hours
Editing letters/columns                         1.50 hours
Dealing with public                             1.05 hours
Attending meetings                              0.91 hours
Planning                                        0.90 hours
Reading periodicals                             1.27 hours
Work load increase last 2 years
Great deal                                      17%
Moderate amount                                 45%
Little or none                                  38%

By party affiliation, the surprise was that more classified themselves as Independents (32%) than Democrats (28%). Fifteen percent said they are Republicans, 3% Libertarians, and 16% have no party affiliation.

The average work week of editorial page editors is 49.15 hours, and average staff size is just under five full-time. The editors are responsible for an average of 1.85 opinion pages per weekday and 2.46 for Sunday editions. They write 1.5 editorials a day, spending 1.67 hours researching and 1.55 hours writing. (See Figure 2.)

Workloads have increased a moderate amount for 45% of the editors and a great deal for 17% in the past two years.

This Speaker Gingrich will be delighted to learn: The Republican Revolution has had an impact on the nation's editorial pages. A surprising 31% said their pages have grown more conservative since the 1994 Republican take-over of Congress.

The statistics generated by the survey indicate that the strongest influence factor on editorial page content is the personal values of the editors. They credit their life experiences, parents, teachers, religious beliefs, and spouse/family, in that order, as being most influential in forming those values. [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED].

Closely behind in influence ranking are their publishers. Through selective hiring/promotion and subtle control of newsroom culture - but seldom direct intervention - publishers manage to steer editorial policy in a direction with which they feel comfortable, the survey results indicated.

Respondents gave publishers an average 3.03 on the 1-to-5 scale of degree of influence, with 70% rating that factor 3.0 or higher. [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 4 OMITTED]. Yet when asked the degree of direct influence by publishers or editors in getting certain editorials in the paper, the ratings fell below 1.0, indicating a very low degree of dictatorship over editorial page editors by their bosses.

The respondents also average below 1.0 in frequency with which they are forced to run editorials to please an advertiser, customer, politician, or public figure. And they aren't caught in ideological binds very often. They averaged just .73 on the 1-to-5 scale in "frequency with which you have to write editorials that conflict with your beliefs."

As noted above, work routines are given a low rating in influencing editorial page editors' views. Reliance upon other media, especially the much-reviled "Eastern liberal establishment" press, was a mixed bag.

The average of all editors' responses to the importance of "what other media are saying" in influencing their own values was 1.73 on the 1-to-5 scale of importance, with only 1% rating it as high as a 4.0, while 54% gave it only a 1.0 and 31% a 2.0.

However, when asked the influence of other media for background information, the average rating on the 1-to-5 scale was 3.22, while the editors' independent research and their own organization's stories were 3.37 and 4.14, respectively. [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 5 OMITTED].

Interestingly, Congressional Quarterly, the bible for coverage of Congress, averaged a relatively low 1.64. And the think tanks, trade groups, and special-interest lobbies that bury editors in paper got just 2.2 in the 1-to-5 measure of importance. Take that, Heritage Foundation.

Of the media that editorialists regularly read, Newsweek was cited by 45% of the respondents, the highest for any periodical. [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 6 OMITTED]. Next was Time, cited by 33%.

The New York Times and The Washington Post, the heart of Eastern liberal establishment thinking, are on the reading list of fewer than a third of the editorialists: 29% for the Times and 13% for the Post.

Summing up these results, editorialists clearly are an elite group in terms of education, prestige, and pay. That is a reflection of the job itself as well as the selection process.

In general, more seasoned mature journalists with the best writing skills are promoted to the ivory tower.

But the socialist label of Speaker Gingrich doesn't stick. In fact, they are not unlike the population as a whole: the majority are married (83%), have children, attend church, and vote - not necessarily as liberal Democrats.

Their editorials reflect their own values as well as those of their publishers. For themselves the values are those of middle America, taught by parents and grandparents, teachers and ministers, as well as by the school of life. In many cases, that has included contact with the poor and the downtrodden, with whom they most often identify by virtue of the newspaper industry's progressive tradition as well as the character qualities of their upbringing.

That does not necessarily coincide with the goals of aspiring politicians or citizens increasingly concerned with the shrinking of their position of dominance in society.

RELATED ARTICLE: What did you want to be when you grew up?

Writing fiction. Some say I do it now. Travel photographer. President of the U.S.A. Mechanic. Scientist. Professional baseball player. Musical comedy performer. Newspaper reporter after reading The Front Page at 14. (At least 20 wanted to be writers, reporters, or editors; one was an aspiring editorial writer.) Movie star or architect. Artist. Private detective. Announcer for the Boston Red Sox. Thank God that dream was deferred. I wouldn't have survived 1986. Geologist. School teacher - until I noted that junior high school students seem to be a tough group. Lawyer. Egyptologist. Civil engineer, but math and I didn't agree. Hollywood gossip writer. Priest, sociologist, journalist. Farmer. Cowboy. Editor of The New York Times. Rich. Successful. Older and out on my own.

From membership survey

RELATED ARTICLE: If you weren't doing what you're doing now, what else would you be doing?

I'd be a ski bum if I could afford it. Otherwise, no idea, but I may soon find out. Theater, movies, or homeless grocery cart guy. Academic research or teaching. If I could start over, I'd be a research scientist. Teaching, writing, growing roses. Traveling. Government service, politics, community service. Deep-sea diver. Editing a daily newspaper again. Artist. Lawyer. Public relations. Psychologist. Beach bum. Making small loans. Living in LaJolla, writing novels, or dead. Selling real estate, logging, or running a bar. Taking over the lease on Ted Kaczynski's cabin. Climbing every peak in the Himalayas. Trying to figure out a way to do what I do now. I cannot conceive of anything that would give me more satisfaction. Writing is the only thing I know how to do or want to do.

From membership survey

RELATED ARTICLE: Name a book you enjoyed recently

The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit, Walter Reuther's biography Carl Hiassen's Stormy Weather A Great Life (Ben Bradlee) The Road Ahead (Bill Gates) The Shipping News The System (David Broder & Haynes Johnson) Breaking the News David Brinkley's memoirs David Herbert Donald's Lincoln biography New biography of Ambrose Bierce Primary Colors Columbia History of the World Deadline (James Reston) Blood Sport Snow Falling on Cedars The Geography of Nowhere Lincoln at Gettysburg The Jewish War (Flavius Josephus) The Twenty-Seventh City James Madison biography God: A Biography Undaunted Courage House of Mirth (Edith Wharton) Chretien (Lawrence Martin) Quest for God (Paul Johnson) Virtue (Martin Olansky) Angle of Repose (Wallace Stegner)

NCEW member David Klement has been a member since 1978. He received his master's degree in mass communication in May 1996 from the University of South Florida's St. Petersburg campus. He is editorial page editor of The Bradenton Herald in Florida.