After reading chapter one of Conrad C. Fink's Writing Opinion for Impact, I found myself bothered by one particular contradiction between on of the National Conference of Editorial Writers Basic Statement of Principles and a later section of the chapter about the pain that opinion writing can cause. The sixth principle of the National Conference of Editorial Writers Basic Statement reads:
"The editorial writer should have the courage of well-founded convictions and should never write anything that goes against his or her conscience. Many editorial pages are products of more than one mind, and sound collective judgment can be achieved only through sound individual judgments" (Fink 8).
Translation: Do not write an opinion piece from a standpoint that you do not truly believe or agree with. An opinion piece is crafted based on an opinion: a personal view, attitude, or appraisal; whether it be the unanimous opinion of a group or the opinion of one individual.
However, on the seventeenth page of Writing Opinion for Impact is the section entitled "It's Not Painless, You Know," which states that "serving the interests of the largest number of people, even if that causes pain to an individual" (Fink 17) is a concept that many editorial writers use to resolve conflicts of principles when writing some opinion pieces. Furthermore, the section explains that "you can suffer deep agony, for example, in a conflict of your loyalties—loyalty to yourself (and your conscience), loyalty to society and to the hand that feeds you (your employer)" (Fink 17).
"What if you are ordered to write an editorial that's contrary to your personal beliefs? Let's say your boss wants an editorial welcoming Acme Industries to town and not mentioning its record of polluting skies and streams?" (Fink 17).What should the editorial writer do in this case? Do they follow the National Conference of Editorial Writers' sixth basic principle of being loyal to one's own conscience, or do they go against they own conscience and follow their boss' order to write an editorial that is contrary to their personal beliefs? Better yet, why would an editor assign an editorial story to a writer whose beliefs conflict with the target angle of the story? Perhaps the editor does not have time to really get to know the writers on their team and thus do not know their individual outlooks. Okay, that's understandable, but would an editor actually fire or punish a writer for declining or refusing to write an editorial that goes against his/her personal beliefs or that does not address something that he/she feels the public ought to be aware of (i.e.: an industry's record of polluting skies and streams)?
Fink emphasizes the importance of following one's conscience, but also points out that an editorial writer may face a time where they have to go against it, thus breaking the sixth principle of the National Conference of Editorial Writers Basic Statement. So what does Fink advise a writer to do if they find themselves in a situation where they must decide between remaining loyal to themselves or loyal to their editor? ...He doesn't.Without any help from Fink, I have drawn my own opinion: a writer should never be put in a situation by their editor where they must decide between being loyal to his/herself or loyal to their editor and thus betraying his/her own conscience. The most sensible thing for an editor to do when assigning an editorial with a particular angle would be to give it to a writer with according beliefs, not to one whose beliefs conflict. If there is not a single writer on the team who can write the story without being disloyal to his/her conscience, then perhaps the editorial does not belong in the newspaper since it obviously would not reflect the beliefs of the newspaper staff as a whole.
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