Press Releases Are Not Op-eds
I feel the day is incomplete if I haven’t read the New York Times, especially the op-ed page. But I’m bothered that op-eds sometimes appear more because of the writer’s status and less because of the merits of his argument.
Exhibit A: Today’s op-ed by Senator Arlen Specter may include bits of news, but it is not newsworthy—especially for the Sunday paper and especially with a kicker like “I am confident that we [the United States Senate] can meet our responsibilities.”
As it happens, David Shipely, the op-ed editor (by the way, why isn’t this position on the masthead?) would seem to agree. “Does it help to be famous” in order to get published, he asked in February 2004?
Not really. In fact, the bar of acceptance gets nudged a little higher for people who have the means to get their message out in other ways—elected officials, heads of state, corporate titans. It’s incumbent on them to say something forthright and unexpected. Op-ed real estate is too valuable to be taken up with press releases.
A similar situation occured this past April, when I sent the Times a letter to the editor regarding its editorial on pharmacists who refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions. It may very well be that my words simply didn’t merit publication—although Steve Chapman made the same point in his syndicated column a few days later—but I suspect that it was passed over for the press release-letter by Senators Santorum and Kerry.
Addendum (7/26/2005): I sent the above thoughts to the Times’s Public Editor, and received the following reply from his assistant today:
Thanks for writing and sharing your thoughts. Mr. Calame is very interested in how letters and op-ed pieces are selected for publication, and may write about it in a future column or on his Web journal. So we will keep your comments on file for his possible future use.
Posted by Jonathan Rick in 
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