IT'S TOUGH to critique an opinion page. I haven't done it yet because there have always been more pressing matters to which to devote my column. I do it this week because the only letter I received was about an Associated Press story,and because in general I've probably neglected the page too long.
I should start with the necessary disclosure: I was a Cavalier Daily columnist for two years and the editor of the opinion page for one. And drawing on that experience, I can say confidently that this week's opinion pages demonstrate a columnist roster of as high a quality as I ever saw during my time at The Cavalier Daily.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that, though fully half this week's columns were about the war, they mostly avoided the trap of taking too broad an opinion, such as "Bombing Iraq is good," or "Down with Bush." That's important on an opinion page with regular columnists, because it reduces the possibility that the columns will become duplicative. The University's anti-war protest walkout and the defacement of the ROTC building also gave columnists a chance to write about the war in a localized context. If 50 percent of columns were about the war, the other half were on other topics, and that's also a good thing. As one columnist argued succinctly and persuasively, newspapers shouldn't focus on the war to the detriment of coverage of other topics. The Cavalier Daily's opinion pages included a viewpoint encouraging dialogue between the two sides of the abortion debate, a discussion of the estate tax bill in the Virginia legislature, an argument that the Oscars should not have been toned down, and a defense of the South, which remains a pertinent and touchy subject in Charlottesville.
The columns all took a strong stand, which is imperative to opinion writing. It may sound elementary, but there are would-be college opinion writers out there who don't seem to have strong opinions, or opinions on subjects that are important or relevant. For the most part, the columns were persuasively argued and well-written. I did cringe a bit at the use of the adjective 'populous,' where the noun 'populace' was intended. Spell check doesn't catch everything.
Opinion writing is tough to critique, as I mentioned earlier, because the critic must avoid the pitfall of being influenced by the position that a writer takes, rather than by the quality of the his argument. We all have opinions, and if someone writing on a topic dear to us does her job, we may agree with her whole-heartedly, or become incensed. It is for this very reason that opinion columns generate so many letters to the editor, that regular opinion page readers have columnists they love and columnists they love to hate. And it is for this reason that good editing is so important on opinion pages. The final product -- The Cavalier Daily's opinion pagetells me that the editors are doing their jobs. Most of the paper's columnists have or are clearly developing a unique voice. The paper does not appear afraid to allow its opinion writers to tackle controversial topics. And no one can rightfully accuse the opinion page of being too slanted in one direction or another. The opinions are diverse, and the topics are important and relevant. Good job.
A gentler trend
For regular readers of this column (I acknowledge there may not be any; but then, the Ombudsman column isn't the most exciting part of the newspaper), I feel compelled to explain what may appear to be a lighter touch in my last few columns. I tend to try to focus on one subject in each column, because 800 words aren't really enough to critique the entire newspaper. For much of this semester, readers pointed out issues in the paper that I could not ignore, and which I felt were mistakes that needed to be pointed out and analyzed. While the columns were negative, the paper's quality was still high.
Now, several weeks have passed where I feel the staff has done an exemplary job with the entire paper. Though not having a glaring error to criticize and recommend solutions for makes my job harder, it's a pleasure to read a student newspaper of such high quality.
(Masha Herbst can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.)
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