A Washington Post op-ed ignited Trump’s impeachment inquiry. Here’s why newspapers run them.
Washington,
September 25, 2019
Originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer
Written by Erica Palan On Monday evening, the Washington Post published a piece written by seven freshman Democrats in the House of Representatives (including Pennsylvania’s Chrissy Houlahan). The article, which ran as an op-ed in the Opinion section, outlined the shared viewpoint of these representatives that President Trump’s alleged interactions with Ukraine were inappropriate and worthy of an impeachment inquiry. Less than 24 hours later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would initiate a formal impeachment inquiry. In an interview with Michael Barbaro, host of the New York Times Daily podcast, Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, one of the signers of the piece, identified the op-ed as a key piece of information that led Speaker Pelosi to make the formal inquiry, something she’d been resisting, despite calls from many who have been pushing for more scrutiny of Trump’s presidency. The term op-ed is a hybrid of the words opposite and editorial, because traditionally, op-eds run on the page next to the editorial page. (Editorial, another word for your newspaper vocabulary, is an opinion about a matter of public interest or policy representing the institutional voice of a news organization, researched and written by an editorial board, a group of writers and editors separate from the newsroom.) Op-eds are essays or commentaries that present the opinion or perspective of someone with insight on the news. Op-eds explore new ideas and present issues and insights by writers and thinkers who have no connection with the newspaper. |