The ethical dilemma of opinion writing

 Ashley Beach 

ab026319@ohio.edu 

Photo via engineering.dartmouth.edu

Journalism in itself is meant to be straightforward. All biases should be checked at the door and personal beliefs should not seep into a writer's work. Allowing personal opinions to be published in a media source can be problematic when looking at it from a philosophical standpoint. Yet, there are op-ed sections in almost all newspapers.

Op-ed, or opposite-the-editorial, articles are opinion pieces that can be found opposite the editorials page. They contain the ideas of an individual writer and are not to be associated with the newspaper or media source they are found in.

The Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics helps separate the opinionated from the non-opinionated. It calls for opinion writers to "distinguish between advocacy and news reporting" and "remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility." These guidelines put forth a precedent that those who enter the opinion side of journalism will remain independent in their work and ideas.   

Despite this, the question still looms: is opinion writing ethical in a philosophical sense?

Several issues arise when putting opinion writing under a philosophical lens. The theories of teleology, rationalism and utilitarianism can all be applied to the nature of the practice. Each one has a role in how the piece is developed and consumed no matter what platform it is found on. 

An opinion writer wants their work to reach its target audience. To do so, they elect to discuss a topic that is right for the majority of readers. Doing so unintentionally puts utilitarianism into practice because writers want to do what is morally right for the better half of the group. But, it forgets about the morals of the author.

Authors can lose themselves when pushing to write what the masses want — opening the door for teleology. 

Teleology is the part of philosophy that deals with reaching an end goal. All pieces are written with the intention to inform, however, opinion pieces carry extra weight in this region. The end goal of an opinion piece is to bring awareness to an idea while attempting to not tie a publication to it. This practice is tricky because opinion writers want to garner support for their topic but must remain unaffiliated with the idea.  

Publishing multiple opinions in a section calls for the reader to think rationally about what they choose to consume. Pieces with identifiable biases and affiliations often have skewed information in them. When a reader looks for facts rather than emotions in an article, they use rationalism.

Rationalism is a two-way street, though. It creates room for the idea that reason is more valuable than experience when deciding to trust a source. Readers may choose to believe the article of a columnist because of their ability to push an agenda rather than their experience with the topic. A recent example of this is the misinformation of COVID-19 that was spread among infographics on social media platforms.  Many consumers trusted what they saw simply because of the person who shared it.

Philosophically speaking, opinion writing is unethical as a whole. Personal biases stem in the creation and consumption of opinion pieces. Philosophy and journalism are both about seeking and publishing the truth — truth that must be verifiable. Op-eds are still biased even if there is research to prove the argument in the article simply because there is an argument in the article. The biases found in opinion writing may not be obvious to the reader, but they can still be found by closely examining the story.