What a columnist does

As regular newspaper readers have waned, more people are confused about what I do, both in my day job and on this blog. Clark Hoyt, public editor of The New York Times talks to the newspapers' op-ed editor to offer this a useful primer:

The license and responsibilities of an Op-Ed columnist…are similar in some fundamental ways to those of a news
reporter but profoundly different in other ways.

First, the similarities. A columnist is subject to the same
standards of factual accuracy as any writer in The Times, on any page.
If a columnist writes that something happened on a certain date, or
that the government spent a certain amount of money on something, or
that a specific number of people have died in the war in Iraq, to pick
a few examples, it is his or her responsibility to make certain that
information is correct. Columnists must make sure that when they
describe an event they are being accurate in their description. When
they quote someone, they are required to do so accurately. Errors that
are made must be corrected openly and quickly.

Columnists are required to follow basic New York Times style — on
the use of profanity and vulgarity, for example. But they do have more
freedom to express themselves than news reporters, in big and small
ways. When it comes to Times style rules, for example, we do not
require them to use the honorific, Mr., Ms. and so on, if they choose
not to. (The Public Editor has that right too.) One of our columnists
hates to use “whom,” when it feels awkward, so we bend that rule.
Maureen Dowd frequently uses humorous nicknames for public officials
(Donald Rumsfeld was often Rummy in her columns), and that is O.K. too.

Most of all, columnists are not only free to express their personal
opinions, that is the primary part of their job. We pay them to have
strong opinions and to express them sharply and with great style. They
can choose any subject they want to write about, within the bounds of
decency and appropriate journalistic inquiry (although we do ask them,
with varying degrees of lack of success, to avoid directly endorsing a
candidate for office). All of our columnists have areas of interest and
expertise that they will return to frequently, but the subject matter
of any given column is up to them. They do not have to clear them in
advance with me, nor do I exercise any control over the positions they
take. The columnists have a very personal relationship with their
readers, and the readers deserve to hear directly from the columnists.

While columnists must adhere to The Times’s high standards of
factual accuracy, they are allowed great latitude in characterizing
events, people or issues in a way that expresses an opinion. They are
free, for example, to say that they believe that the Catholic Church’s
hierarchy treats nuns unfairly, even if the members of that hierarchy
deny it. They are not even required to include that denial in their
columns. Columns are not required, or intended, to be fair and
dispassionate accounts of events. They are by nature one-sided.
Columnists may find it useful to give the opposing views on any
position they take, or they may not, and it’s entirely up to them.

A columnist can be tough, acerbic, playful, joyful, angry,
chagrined, outraged or anything else — within the general bounds of
decency that are embodied in the values of The Times.

That sums it up well.