The Craft of Having an Opinion
An editor at The New Republic on how to write an op-ed.
By Adam B. Kushner
Tuesday May 16, 2006
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel would have made an excellent opinion journalist. Of course, the Romantic idealist philosopher didn’t spend much time waxing quarrelsome for the local paper – though he was briefly a newspaper editor. But Hegel articulated a theory of history that is, today, the basis for every good opinion piece.
In The Phenomenology of Spirit – a piece of turgid writing if ever there was one – Hegel explains that history occurs in epochs and that each one is, in some way, a reaction against the one that preceded it. (In hindsight, it’s easy to see how Romantics like Hegel were themselves reacting against the flaws of Enlightenment reasoning.) He believed that an epoch provided a kind of thesis, followed by its opposite, an antithesis, and succeeded finally by a synthesis, whereupon the cycle began again. Really, it’s an update of the ancient Socratic dialectic, but it gives us a rubric to argue ideas.
The best opinion pieces take this Hegelian structure. They start with a thesis, or a premise. Say you want to argue that the United States government should establish universal healthcare. Now we have the first step, and we can lay down the contours of the argument: (a) the very existence of Medicare and Medicaid suggests we believe health care is a right, not a privilege. (b) Many millions of Americans are currently uninsured. (c) Without insurance protection, we obviate the social safety net and subject Americans to sudden, destabilizing life forces. (This isn’t meant to be comprehensive; I’m just showing the structure.) Here is where you show your primary evidence – the number of uninsured, studies that show how they fare in life, et cetera. Of course, none of this means that the top of the piece, the lede (special journalist spelling), can’t begin with an anecdote, a news peg, or some other interesting window into the subject; just don’t open with “I was walking home the other day and it struck me that…”
It’s not good enough merely to argue for your own rightness. Any intellectually honest contention also grapples with its own shortcomings. Not every idea is perfect (or, at the very least, not every idea seems perfect), and, as an idea’s champion, you need to deal with that. That means facing the antithesis head-on. So what’s the case against universal health care? Spell it out in print: (a) Health care is not a right; we live in a country of individuals who should be, in the end, responsible for taking care of themselves rather than depending on the government. (b) We can’t afford to pay for single-payer health care, since government insurance already takes up some incredible (and growing) proportion of the federal budget. (c) Private insurance creates competition and drives prices down.
Some of these are potent challenges to the premise, and they need to be dealt with directly. If, in writing your own op-ed, you can’t think of what the antitheses might be, ask a conservative friend or look up research studies and op-eds on the subject from conservative think tanks and journals. Do research; pick up the phone and get a quote from a prominent thinker (even a conservative one) on the subject; scour the Internet. The status quo you’re fighting against may often be wrong, but generally there is some rationale to explain its existence.
Now, armed with challenges to your thesis, you’re ready to create a final synthesis, a conclusion that counteracts the counterarguments and returns you once again to the rightness of your premise. In the case, respectively: (a) Cite the popularity of – and general American support for – New Deal entitlements that were designed to collectivize American society. (b) Show that increasing costs are due to medical advances, that other countries can afford to do this (even if it means paying more in taxes), and that Medicare already is far more efficient than private insurers, which siphon off large profit margins for staffs and shareholders. (c) Turn the conservative market obsession on its head by exposing how the Republicans in hock to health industries won’t even let the government – their biggest client – use its buying power to negotiate better prices, and suggest that the complexity of health insurance discourages buyers from shopping comparatively, so private insurance prices, even now, are artificially high.
If you can’t rebut everything from the antithesis, there’s something wrong with your idea. Perhaps it’s minor: You might acknowledge, in a synthetic conclusion that, due to the cost, one plan for distributing universal health care is better than another. But if you can’t convincingly refute a philosophical or reportorial challenge to your thesis, you shouldn’t write it, because, if you do, you won’t persuade any readers except those already inclined to agree with you. Finally, you can end the piece either with a clever kicker or turn of phrase that drives home the point (though these are notoriously difficult to pull off) or by returning to the lede, coming full circle. It’s exactly what Hegel would have wanted.
Adam B. Kushner is assistant managing editor of The New Republic and a columnist for the DC Examiner.
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Adam Kushner’s pointers about getting an op-ed published in any major periodical are useless. What virtually assures that an essay will make it into print are the contributor’s credentials – most notably if the person is a celebrity. I’ve never seen an op-ed, no matter how well documented and expressed, that was from an unknown writer. This is particularly the case in the field of education because despite their hands-on experience teachers are viewed by editors with low regard. Instead, think tank fellows, established authors and university professors with no classroom knowledge get their views published on a regular basis. The New Republic, where Kushner is an editor, is a case in point that undermines his remarks.
Walt Gardner taught for 28 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District and was a lecturer in the UCLA Graduate School of Education. He writes frequently on education.
— Walt Gardner - May 18, 05:58 PM - #Thank you very much for this very beautiful item. I am thinking of joing a journalism school. I am to write an entrance examination next week. I hope your suggestions would be useful for me( along with Walt Garner’s ‘antithesis’).
— Chittibabu Padavala - May 19, 01:14 PM - #No matter how breezy, yet accurate your op/ed piece, you’ll never get published in a major daily. It’s all about credentials, the aforementioned celeb status. The San Francisco Chronicle devoted days of entire pages to Sean Penn’s Iraq observations.
The opinion page editor is more than not someone who’s never sold an article in their life; a variant of “those who can’t, teach.” Before San Fran became another one-major-daily town, the San Francisco Examiner ran a dozen of my op/ed columns. But it my was salesmanship, the ability to schmooze, that did it. And, of course, the very columns i had to sell hardest were the ones they piped over the NY Times News Service. I’ve had opinion page editors admit they liked a column, that there was nothing wrong with it, but they just ”....weren’t going to run it.” It’s who you know, NOT how cogent or deftly presented your points. I supported myself for years freelancing for national magazines, so I know what I’m talking about, and this ain’t sour grapes, just reality.— Mike Scott - May 19, 02:41 PM - #An articulate nobody sharing the same experience/views’d be lucky to have a brief letter to the editor published.
Walt Gardner and Mike Scott are making assertions that are not backed up by any sort of evidence other than personal experience, so let me throw in mine here. Within the last year, I’ve sent an unsolicited opinion piece to the Trib that was published; a friend of mine did the same and was published as well; and I’ve had two additional opinion pieces in a major daily based on a brief phone call with the op-ed editor. I work for an obscure online newsweekly that covers Eastern Europe—not the sort of thing that would make you a celebrity. Perhaps I just lucked out but my experience with op-ed editors (including at places like the Financial Times, not exactly an easy gig to get—and I didn’t get it!) have been positive throughout.
— Toby Vogel - May 20, 01:02 PM - #I don’t think Hegel works anymore given current politics, marketing tecniques and attention span. The GOP technique is to promote a thesis and deny the possibility of an antithesis (and call you UnAmerican for acknowledging the possibility of one). On the flip side when their opponents provide them with an antithesis they don’t acknowledge your thesis and use your antithesis against you. Your own words become their talking points – and you gave them to them which they are happy to point out. Attention span comes in since by the time the synthesis rolls around they have already flipped the channel to the next issue.
— JimyJack - May 21, 07:21 AM - #Walt’s point is unfounded at best. If you have taken the time to read the article @ nytimes.com on how they select op-ed atricles, you would know that being of celebrity statis increases their expectations on the quality of your work, it does not give you a free ride. Also there are hundreds of op-eds published by people from across America and the world, so don’t make stupid comments without taking the time to read and know their validity.
— Chris M - Nov 14, 05:30 PM - #