As the opinion editor at Moonshine Ink, it’s my job to sift through comments on the paper’s social media posts every month to round up remarks for our Readers Reflect page in the print publication. I have been doing this for a few years, and in the process, I have noticed an alarming trend — many readers seem unable to distinguish between news stories and opinion pieces.
News stories are written by a professional journalist who talks to sources, gathers information, and reports the facts in a cohesive, analytical way that helps readers to better understand the subject. In a perfect world, the reporter is simply the messenger; the story is objective, not subjective. An example is the Nov. 30 online story, Placer County Supervisors Approve Palisades Tahoe Development. A journalistic report by yours truly, who attended the meeting and then relayed what was said in public comment and by the supervisors, and how they voted.
An opinion piece, by contrast, can be written by anyone in the community. It can be on any issue and reflects the author’s subjective thoughts. Although Moonshine Ink reviews facts (not experiences) in opinion pieces and won’t print opinions intended to be inflammatory or hateful, the author’s opinion is her or his own and not that of the newspaper. Opinion pieces are important because they let readers hear directly from fellow community members in their own words through the lens of their experiences and beliefs, and they often include a call to action. An example of this was Eddy Ancinas’ November opinion piece, Palisades Village Development: Lessons from the Past and Hopes for the Future, where she gave her reasons for supporting the project. But when her piece was posted on Moonshine’s Facebook page, it received comments like, “Moonshine Ink, we expect better from you.”
In today’s world, where the country’s major news channels, social media, and podcasts are increasingly presenting opinions as fact, I can understand how readers and listeners are getting confused. Yet this shift in the media landscape is cause for major concern. If readers don’t have factual information, or are presented with opinions disguised as facts, they cannot make informed decisions. And if readers think that an author’s opinion represents that of the newspaper’s, they might stop trusting the publication. (For a deeper dive into this topic, see the Jan. 11 New Yorker story, What’s a Fact, Anyway?)
I have come across some shocking comments in the past year on posts about My Shots, the op-eds published in Moonshine Ink. The paper has been accused of selling out, going to the dark side, and spreading misinformation, all because the commentors did not agree with the author’s opinion. We have been asked to take down posts for the same reason and had readers threaten to never read Moonshine Ink again or to stop supporting the paper as a member. Remember these were opinion pieces, not reporting.
Perhaps most disturbing was when a reader direct-messaged me on Facebook and asked me this question about a My Shot written by a second-home owner: “Why did you choose to publish an op-ed from a non-full-time resident on such a hot topic?”
My answer: The opinion pages are open to everyone in the community, which include second-home owners. A robust social fabric demands hearing each other. There are few things more dangerous to a democracy than censorship.
As politicians and national media try to divide us more and more into separate camps, as leaders increasingly present an us-versus-them, my-team-or-your-team mentality toward fellow citizens, let’s not let this filter into our small community. Part of democracy is honoring different opinions and agreeing to disagree. I challenge all of us to not only respect opinions that differ from ours, as hard as that can be sometimes, but to also use discernment and work to distinguish between news and opinion. Our democracy depends on it.
