What Is An Editorial

What an Editorial Actually Is

An editorial is a piece of writing that takes a position on a topic. It is not news reporting. It is argumentative writing, usually published by the editorial board of a publication or by an individual writer whose role is to comment on current events. The defining feature is opinion backed by evidence, not neutral description of what happened. The people who read newspapers often confuse editorials with op-eds. They are different things. An op-ed is written by an outside contributor. An editorial carries the institutional voice of the publication itself. That distinction matters because it changes how you write it and how your audience receives it. When you publish under the masthead, you are speaking for an organization. That gives the piece more authority, but it also means you have to be more careful about accuracy. One factual error in an op-ed is a personal mistake. One factual error in an editorial looks like the publication made the error.

What Is An Editorial vs. What People Think It Is

Most beginners write editorials that read like slightly more opinionated news articles. They summarize the event and then add a paragraph saying what they think about it. That is not how effective editorials work. The argument comes first. The facts serve the argument. The structure is reversed from what most people assume. I learned this the hard way early on. I spent three days researching a local zoning dispute and wrote what I thought was a strong editorial arguing that the city council should reject a proposed development. I had six sources, three council meeting transcripts, and a detailed analysis of the environmental impact report. My editor looked at it and said it was basically a news story with an opinion tacked onto the end. He asked me to rewrite it so the lead paragraph stated the position directly, and everything else supported that. It felt wrong at first because it went against every writing class I had ever taken. The argument-first approach is what separates a real editorial from a column with a strong take. Here is the thing that nobody tells you about editorials: they work best when they address the opposing view fairly and then dismantle it. If you strawman your opponent, experienced readers will notice immediately and the whole piece loses credibility. I once published an editorial about a proposed tax increase where I spent two paragraphs summarizing the opposition's case accurately before showing where the numbers did not hold up. The letter-to-the-editor section that week had more people disagreeing with my premise than usual, but the quality of the pushback was genuinely engaged rather than dismissive. That is the signal you are doing it right.

How to Write One

Start by identifying the question the editorial needs to answer. Not the topic, the specific question. "Should the city fund a new stadium?" is a question. "Stadiums" is a topic. Editorials need the first format because the whole piece exists to produce an answer. If you cannot state the question in one sentence, you do not actually know what your editorial is about yet. Write the thesis in the first paragraph. Do not bury it. Do not build up to it over four paragraphs of context. State your position clearly, then provide the evidence. A typical editorial runs between 500 and 800 words. Anything longer and you are writing an essay. Anything shorter and you probably do not have enough support for the claim. Gather your evidence before you write the draft. I usually spend more time on this step than on the actual writing. Find primary sources whenever possible. Council votes, court documents, budget reports, academic studies. Secondary sources like news articles are fine for context, but if your argument depends on a fact, go to the original document. I remember working on an editorial about school funding where every news article cited the same inflated per-pupil spending number. I went to the district's actual financial statements and found the number was about twelve percent lower. Getting that correction into the piece mattered because the entire argument depended on the spending level being justified or unjustified.

When you draft the piece, keep transitions between paragraphs functional rather than decorative. You do not need to signal every shift with a phrase like "however" or "on the other hand." Readers can follow the logic if you structure the paragraphs so each one builds on the previous one. A common mistake I see is writers who stack arguments without making clear how they connect. Paragraph three should advance the same thread as paragraph two, not introduce a completely unrelated point that just happens to support the same conclusion. Address the strongest version of the counterargument. This is where most editorials fail. Writers pick the weakest version of what the opposition would say, knock it down easily, and move on. That is not convincing anyone who already disagrees with you. It just makes you look like you did not understand their position. Spend time articulating the best counterargument before you rebut it. Then show why it still does not outweigh your position.

Where Editorials Fail

The biggest limitation of the editorial format is that it reinforces existing beliefs rather than changing minds. If someone already agrees with you, the editorial validates their position. If someone already disagrees, the editorial makes them dig in deeper. The audience for an editorial is mainly people on the fence, and those are the hardest people to reach because they have not committed to a side yet. That is why the tone matters so much. Condescending editorials lose fence-sitters just as fast as anything else. The writing should assume the reader is intelligent and well-meaning even when you disagree with them. Another failure mode is when the editorial becomes a policy wishlist. "The government should do X" is not an argument. It is a statement of preference. You need to explain why X is the right choice compared to the alternatives, not just why X sounds good. This is where the evidence-gathering step becomes critical. If you cannot articulate the trade-offs, you do not have an editorial ready yet. There is also the institutional constraint to consider. If you are writing an editorial for a publication, the editorial board will review it before publication. That process can strip out nuance or soften language that the writer thinks is important. I have had pieces returned with phrases like "the council's decision was flawed" changed to "the council's decision raises concerns" because the board felt the original wording was too aggressive. That is a normal part of the process, but it means you should expect the final published version to differ from your draft. Factor that into your workflow. Write the piece you want to write, then work with the editor to get the strongest version published, not the version you would write if you were composing for yourself alone.

The format works well for issues that have a clear decision point. A vote happening next week, a policy being proposed, a court case moving forward. It does not work well for open-ended cultural questions or topics where the facts are genuinely unclear. If you cannot identify what decision the editorial is urging toward, you are probably writing something else and should call it a column instead.