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Aneditorial, orleading article (UK) orleader (UK), is anarticle or any other written document, often unsigned, written by thesenior editorial people or publisher of anewspaper ormagazine, that expresses the publication's opinion about a particular topic or issue. Australian and major United States newspapers, such asThe New York Times[1] andThe Boston Globe,[2] often classify editorials under the heading "opinion".
An editorial usesarguments, and statements of fact andcommon sense, in order to advance a certain point of view (e.g. praise, criticism, apologia or advocacy) held by its publication.[3]
Editorials generally have an introduction that introduces the argument, a body that expands upon it and a conclusion that proposes a way to address the issue being discussed. An editorial differs from acolumn, which represents its author's opinion. Because editorials do not express their individual authors' opinions they are often written in the first-person pluralwe (in which instance the word is known as theeditorial "we"), though they are sometimes written in the first-person singularI.[4]
An editorial is typically written by a member of aneditorial board (a group that decides the editorial policies of a publication that all its editorial writers must follow)[5] or by a member (in some cases the publication'seditor-in-chief) of the publication's general staff. Multiple editorial writers may be on the staff of a large publication. Because an editorial written by someone who does not agree with its message is likely to be rhetorically weak, the editorial writer himself is usually the person who proposes its writing in the first place.[6] A guest editorial may be published in one publication that is written by and expresses the opinions of another.[7]
Many editorials not written by the editor-in-chief lackbylines. Tom Clark, leader-writer forThe Guardian, says that it ensures readers discuss the issue at hand rather than the author.[8] Editorials by the editor are usually signed because the head of the newspaper, the editor, is already known by name, and even if the editor did not write the other editorials, he still oversaw their creations and had some influence over their contents.[9]
Editorials are typically published on a dedicated page, called the editorial page, which often featuresletters to the editor from members of the public; the page opposite this page is called theop-ed page and frequently contains opinion pieces (hence the name "think pieces") by writers not directly affiliated with the publication. However, a newspaper may choose to publish an editorial on the front page. In theEnglish-language press, this occurs rarely and only on topics considered especially important; it is more common, however, in someEuropean countries such asDenmark,Spain,Italy, andFrance.[10]
Not all editorials come in textual form. Illustrated ones may appear in the form ofeditorial cartoons.[11] In the field offashion publishing, the term is often used to refer tophoto-editorials – features with often full-page photographs on a particular theme, designer, model or other single topic, with or (as in aphoto-essay) without accompanying text.[12] Opinionated yet analytical television and radio broadcasts by journalists are the equivalent to written editorials.[13]
In 1978 the National Conference of Editorial Writers published a code of ethics for editorial journalists in its journal,The Masthead. The code stated that editors and editorial writers ought to avoid:[14]
Prototypes to the modern editorial form could be found in the prefaces of newsbooks and pamphlets in 17th century England, and in American essays and papers by authors such asThomas Paine,Isaiah Thomas,James Madison,Alexander Hamilton andJohn Jay (the latter three having collectively writtenThe Federalist Papers) during and after theRevolutionary War (1775–1783). The first known newspaper editorial was written byNoah Webster for his newspaperAmerican Minerva's first edition, which was published on 9 December 1793; in it Webster predicted that Americans would be more patriotic "than other nations before them" because they now "own[ed] their land and property".[15] The "modern newspaper editorial ... emerged" in 1784, in the United States, as a result of the commercialisation of journalism and an increasing interest in politics following the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, theRichmond Enquirer started publishing unsigned opinion pieces and thereby created the first instance of a dedicated editorial page in a newspaper.[16] Editorial cartoons began appearing in American newspapers in the mid-19th century.[17] The first "editorialised" radio programs were broadcast in the 1920s,[18] but theFederal Communications Commission, in order to prevent stations from swaying the public, prohibited editorialisation in radio from 1941 until it executed theFairness Doctrine in 1949.[19]
The dictionary definition ofeditorial at Wiktionary
