Editorials, columns, articles, ads .

Wednesday, November 17, 1999

Editorials, columns, articles, ads … they aren’t interchangeable. The words describing them aren’t synonyms.

However, some of you out there seem to think it doesn’t matter which word you use to refer to the written word. Well, this increasingly anal retentive reporter is here to tell you that it does. I was driven to do it after a person – who shall remain unnamed because he’s had more than enough press already – kept insisting that it was my name on the "ads" in the paper about his business, so I must have been the one who wrote them.

I don’t write ads. Granted, it occasionally feels like I’m writing an ad, as I hammer in one of those feel-good articles many people think should be all that fills the paper. But I’m not. People pay for ads, and they get to pick and choose what goes in them.

Let’s get down to some rough definitions now, so when next you have the urge to write and complain (or compliment) you know which word to use.

A column, like this one, goes on the opinion page with the writer’s photo because it is his or her opinion. I don’t represent any other person but myself when I write my column. If I make claims – e.g. Austin doesn’t need more parking lots downtown – then I should support those. However, I am free to argue the case as I like, because it’s my column and my face people will be throwing darts at if they disagree.

The Austin Daily Herald does have another type of column, more a community service type. The public health nurse, the public schools superintendent, the YMCA director, the Social Security man … they’re all there to inform and help. If they shamelessly self-promote, so be it, their agencies have been deemed worthy. However, if they start to vent on our boa-clad governor, off with their heads.

Back to opinion. An editorial bears no man’s (or woman’s) picture, although it too is an opinion. Editorials are supposed to represent the opinion of "the paper," not just one individual. They are usually written by someone on the editorial staff. Here at the Herald, it’s nigh impossible to get an editorial – with any teeth – that everyone agrees with. I suspect that happens at every paper and I’ll stop there before I get into trouble.

Letters to the Editor are opinion pieces that you, the readers, write. They aren’t articles, although you are free to submit those as well. Many people use Letters to the Editor to respond to articles that have run in the paper, or columns, or simply to say ‘thank you’ to the community. It’s a nice, and free, way to say what you think.

Ads, advertisements, paid-for-paper-space … are generally pretty obvious – and prettier than much of the editorial package – and not worthy of further explanation except to say that the Bible verse on the front page of the Herald everyday is paid for by someone – not the paper.

There you have it folks. I expect you, when you write your letter to the editor saying that Ms. Peterson needs to shovel a little more chicken poop before she’s allowed to spout off again, that you correctly refer to the offending piece as a "column" – not an article or an ad.

Jana Peterson’s ad… article… column appears Wednesdays