What’s the difference between a news story and an opinion column?

There are subtle distinctions between ‘news’ and ‘opinion’ that are not always easy to ascertain.

News is the backbone of a newspaper, and describes articles that attempt to report the traditional who, what, why, when and how of an issue or event. Although all newspaper content has some measure of bias — journalists are human after all — news stories attempt to largely convey facts and reactions about an issue or event with as much balance and fairness as possible.

Opinion, on the other hand, is about just that: it is the opinion of the person writing the column. Opinion writing is also built on facts and reactions, but columnists are allowed to offer their personal views through argument and analysis.

Often, these subtle differences allow the newspaper to “package” together news and opinion: the news to give you basic details of an issue or event; opinion to provide you with one informed columnist’s analysis of the story. Opinions can vary — and should vary — among the opinion writers at a newspaper. But properly done, opinion can form a very important element of a newspaper’s mission, which is to bring to light that which others would keep in the dark.

At the Free Press, any opinion piece is clearly labelled as such using a tag that reads “opinion,” both in print and online.