Renegade
Show me what you got.
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2015
- Messages
- 1,932
- Reaction score
- 1,128
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Belfast
- Supports
- Trad Bricks
Have a semi-related question for you (and GG if he wants to pitch in) - what do you think about opinion pieces being heavily featured on the homepages of all major news websites? Do they serve a legitimate purpose or are they a means to rouse a newspaper's political agenda?And if you're a journalist GodsGift, you should know very well why in this moment in time, when journalism is repeatedly attacked by the powers that be, that the line between opinions and journalism has to be stressed over and over again.
But maybe it's my credibility on the forum that's hitting me here, here's the wikipedia articles with lots of good sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columnist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalist
It is one of my biggest gripes with current media - that alongside real fact-based articles, the homepages of major news outlets are littered with opinion pieces. It may say 'opinion' in the article's header, but because the author has been afforded such a prominent position on the news outlet's website, I worry that their views are taken as fact by many. I have lost count of the number of times people have cited opinion-based articles at me, as though they have credence in a fact-based debate.
Obviously not referring to MacKenzie here. More pieces written by actual journalists, perhaps written with good intent, but promoting an agenda that suits the news outlet. I think the opinions of individual journalists should very clearly be separated from the facts in order not to sway the minds of the general public. I don't see this happening where I consume most of my news, including The Guardian, supposed paragon of journalistic integrity (though as I type, their website actually doesn't have any opinion pieces directly below the major headlines, that's not the norm).
Last edited: