Globe public editor: Reporting vs. opinion

By Sylvia Stead, public editor of The Globe and Mail

In the newspaper, readers generally understand the difference between news reporting and commentary. Comments and opinions are either set up differently with a columnist's picture or grouped together on comment pages.

Online is a trickier proposition.

By Sylvia Stead, public editor of The Globe and Mail

In the newspaper, readers generally understand the difference between news reporting and commentary. Comments and opinions are either set up differently with a columnist's picture or grouped together on comment pages.

Online is a trickier proposition.

If you come in to a story through the front door by clicking on the Opinion page, you will see articles which are clearly comment. Even if you come in through the back door, i.e. through a link or Facebook or Twitter, those same news opinions include the label Globe Debate at the top left-hand corner.

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Here's an example of one today by Kevin Lynch.

That transparency is very important. Readers need to see that this is an opinion and whose opinion. In this case, Kevin Lynch is described as a contributor and his day job is listed in italics at the bottom of the comment.

But last week a reader wrote in about this article.

It is on the Report on Business section of the site under Economy Lab, a section that is not clearly marked as opinion. The article puts forward the controversial view that more roads, not transit, will ease congestion. The article shows that the writer Brian Lee Crowley is the managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an independent non-partisan public policy think tank in Ottawa.

But unlike other comment or opinion articles, that is the only indication it is a comment piece. 

To continue reading this column, please go theglobeandmail.com where it was originally published.

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