Opinion: Distinguishing the Difference Between a News Story and an Editorial

The interviewee can have an opinion, not the reporter.

This is going to sound extremely harsh, but remember we’re talking about reporting news versus stating an opinion.

To call the death of a 17-year-old drunk driver who wrapped his car around a tree, tragic, is also opinion.

Maybe it was a tragic death, but maybe anyone knowing the driver thinks he was a complete low life and total waste of humanity who kicked his dog, abused his girlfriend, and was known for his reckless driving and lack of consideration for the safety of anyone else on the road.

They just might think that it wasn’t such a bad thing, because he’s no longer a menace to anyone and offed himself out before turning somebody else into road kill.

Again, whether it’s tragic or not is for someone who knew the person to say; it’s not up to the reporter to determine.

The holiday season is almost upon us and you’ll see a lot of stories that will start out saying a child's sad Christmas, or unhappy time for many people this time of year. Both are true and both are opinions, unless substantiated by an expert's opinion.

These kinds of stories are puff pieces and there’s some give in how much interpretative liberty can be taken by the reporter.

Even though it’s done, those kinds of liberties aren’t allowed in hard news stories.

Although most reporters push the limits in writing their news stories, and busy editors don’t catch the errors, so it’s up to the reader to tell the difference.

Read what you will, but keep a sharp eye out for differentiating between what is a hard news story, what is a puff piece and what is out and out opinion.

You can do it; it’s not that hard, and it’s not that difficult to see when one tiny adjective can change the entire slant of a story.

When it comes to hard news, Joe Friday’s old admonition of “just the facts ma’am” couldn’t be more true.

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