Op-Eds in News Clothing

In the mainstream news media, it has long been common practice to distinguish between articles that are reporting news and opinion pieces. However, something that I see turning up with increasing frequency in news outlets are articles that are not labelled as Opinion, but are in fact mostly that. An example of this came up last year in the local London Free Press (aka The Freeps).

The article is titled “Western accused of trying to push aside women’s hockey concerns”, which appeared on page A2 of the Nov 11, 2023 paper edition of the Freeps that landed on my porch that morning. The byline is Jane Sims, a regular reporter for the Freeps.

The story out there in the world that this article refers to is the fact that the UWO women’s hockey team went through a kerfuffle involving the University’s strength-training coach (who worked with all the university’s athletes, apparently) and the team’s own coach. There was an investigation which resulted in the strength coach being dismissed but the coach of the hockey team staying on. Reports in previous editions of the Freeps indicated that not all of the hockey team players were happy with this outcome. This article of Nov 11 occupies 24 column-inches in this edition of the Freeps, making it the longest article in the paper’s Section A not covering some aspect of Remembrance Day. There is some re-stating of what had happened previously in the matter, some other material (e.g., that about 20 players were on the ice for the last practice) that may be new to readers, but what is undoubtedly new in the article is a series of quotes from Garrett Holmes, who is said to be the founder of The Canadian Student-Athlete Association. The website for this organization states the following:

The Canadian Student-Athlete Association is a non profit unincorporated association founded by Western University student-athlete Garrett Holmes on July 20, 2020.   

It serves as the only independent voice for Canadian university and college athletes. 

The article notes that Holmes had written two letters to the UWO president criticizing the university’s handling of this matter, and quotes him repeatedly.

I am citing this article not because I find what Holmes has to say about all this objectionable, but because the article is presented as news, when in fact it is to all intents and purposes an opinion piece that presents the opinions of one person regarding this matter – Garrett Holmes. There is nothing in the article to suggest that Holmes has any more information about what happened than would anyone else who had been reading about it in the Freeps. He has not interviewed anyone at Western so far as we know, nor has he any inside information not available to others. He has an opinion about what happened, as might you, but you didn’t get quoted in the Freeps. The Freeps simply inserts his opinions – and no one else’s – into what is supposed to be a news article. Indeed, the article headline – not typically written by the reporter – suggests that Mr. Holmes’ views about what happened are the entire point of the story.

So I ask, why Mr Holmes’ views, and his views only? Did Ms Sims contact anyone else to get their, possibly differing, views? Did she contact the UWO Prez, or John Doerksen, or the coach herself, or any players? Is there something about Mr. Holmes that makes him uniquely qualified to have his views aired in London’s only newspaper?  He is indeed the founder of the CSAA, and you can visit that org’s website here (link). It lists Mr Holmes as founder, has some info about him, and you can also read there its two-page constitution, and note that it’s Board of Directors is ‘coming soon’ – just as it has been since the Freeps article appeared last year. The constitution’s last line is “This constitution may only be amended by a unanimous vote of the Board.”

There is a larger point here, that ‘news’ articles in many outlets include a lot of what is said or written by ‘advocates’, ‘activists’ and ‘experts’ . If Mr Holmes is an ‘expert’, the standards for that designation by the Freeps seem kinda low to me.

Moreover, if a media outlet is going to quote such people, the outlet has to choose which of the many available ‘experts’ to quote, and doing so necessarily inserts what are most typically no more than opinions into a news article.

By the usual conventions, this article is news rather than opinion because it does not include the opinions of Ms Sims, or anyone else who works for the Freeps, such as the Editorial Board. But quoting one and only one other person’s opinions moves the article into opinion none the less, in my view. Consider that if she wanted, Ms Sims could insert her opinions into any article just by finding an ‘expert’ or ‘advocate’ whose opinions she shares and quoting only them. I’m not saying this is what happened here, but still, this news story is really mostly opinion, because it mostly ‘reports’ the comments of one person.

One response to this might be – ‘Really, all you’re complaining about is the Freeps being a bit hazy about the line between news and opinion? People can tell the difference between the facts reported in the article and Holmes’ opinions. No big deal, get over it.’

I think it’s a deal. Why did the Freep do this? Why did they not just report on the latest developments in the matter, and leave any comments from Mr Holmes or others to the Op-Ed page? There are always many motives that can be dreamt up to explain any behavior you might observe, but I will hypothesize a particular one in this case.

News media outlets, and the Freeps in particular, want controversy in their news stories, they want to report that people are upset, outraged, deeply concerned, that they are ‘calling out’ other people. Mr Holmes’ comments got in the article, on my hypothesis, because he accuses the university of treating the athletes badly. He is quoted ‘I think it’s clear that some players, if not all, don’t feel it’s a safe environment….’(ellipsis in the original)*.  Mr Holmes cites safety concerns, and that is the great contemporary trigger – there is nothing worse you can accuse a person of in the 21^st century than being unconcerned about safety. However Ms Sims came to know about Mr. Holmes and his views, I’m betting that he would have found himself ignored and un-quoted had he commended the UWO admin for its actions in this matter.

*(pseudo-footnote): I would never let my students back in the day get away with a sentence that starts with ‘I think it’s clear that….’ – a topic for another post.