Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. Chapter Twelve Editorials, Opinion Pieces, Columns, Blogs and Cartoons 367 Ethical journalists do not create details, nor do they change them. If a conversation happened before school, do not say it happened at lunch. If one short person reports being hit in the face by a tall person’s backpack in the hallway, do not say people have complained. Do not say you saw the assault by the swinging backpack if you only heard about it. Do not say you saw the bruise if you did not. The Closing The closing of an op-ed, whether it is primarily narrative or primarily expositive, should make the writer’s position clear. It may be a call to action, or it may be a clearly stated conclusion or a summary of an Seven Ways to Make Your Audience Cranky: How Not to Start an Op-Ed Don’t: 1. Make a claim without verifying it. • More and more teenagers are smoking. Nope. Teen smoking has been going down. • The entire student body expected huge changes for this school year. Really? Did you ask everyone? 2. Use most or all without statistical evidence. “Most” is over 50 percent. “All” is 100 percent. • Every student has tried to get onto his favorite website while at school and has been upset when Facebook or Twitter was blocked.” Really? How about the kids with smartphones? • We all have opinions on everything. Even about eyebrow waxing in Albania? 3. State the obvious. Your audience’s first reaction should not be “Well, duh!” • The holiday season is upon us. • Many of us take the bus to get to school and back home. 4. Ask questions that cannot be answered in fewer than 1,000 words. • Is the Christmas season too commercial? • What does it mean to be a Cantwell Indian? 5. Start with the time element when the time is not the focus in the op-ed. Better to start with a subject and a verb. • On Friday, November 28, students involved with the larger “occupy” were pepper- sprayed. Would it have been OK on Saturday, November 29? • Every year there is a huge story about nutrition in American schools. Only once a year? 6. Make your audience wade through a swamp of empty words to get to the noun and verb. Whether it be in the form of Tumblr posts, music videos or ubiquitous YouTube advertisements, it’s certain that something is brewing in mainstream American culture, something that’s been bubbling underneath the surface for centuries. Feminism. Without the confusing swamp of words, the writer seems to mean, “Aren’t we about ready to outgrow our gender biases?” 7. Fragments! Gawwkkkk! Save the single words for the headline, or better yet, the slammer in the headline. • Lockers. In almost every high school movie ever made ... • Homework. College applications. SATs. What more can a senior ... • Spirit week. Five craze-filled school days ...