Hazel Brannon Smith was almost certainly the most unpopular woman in Mississippi when she wrote an editorial in 1963 lambasting the racist White Citizens Councils in the Lexington Advertiser, a newspaper she owned.
“The hierarchy of rulers in this totalitarian-like organization permit no deviation from its official line – and those who believe in and stand for the traditional American concepts of human liberty, dignity, and decency, do so at their own peril,” she wrote in an editorial that was both poetic and dangerous.
The councils constituted a network of white supremacy groups throughout the South, often with deep ties to prominent local citizens. They had already been targeting Smith with economic pressure, not for being a full-throated integrationist – she wasn’t – but for editorials in which she insisted on adherence to the rule of law, demanded fairness for all and encouraged peaceful race relations.
Smith paid a steep price for her courage.
Death threats, arson in her pressroom, boycotts and even the firing of her husband as a hospital administrator did not temper her fight for liberty and justice. She became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, in 1964.
Smith’s story is inspiring, yet by no means an isolated instance. But the long history of newspaper editorials may now be about to end, a casualty of both changing news values and economic pressure.
Since the birth of this nation, newspapers large and small have published their own opinion pieces challenging the powerful, calling for reform and demanding accountability. The editorials weren’t always constructive. There were plenty of editorials criticizing Smith, and others were partisan attacks. But many reflected care for the community and calls for a better future.
Editorials – in their ideal form – are essentially letters from the newspaper itself to its readers explaining a problem, outlining the facts and then concluding what would be in the best interests of the community. You can agree or disagree, but the end result is that you gave it some thought, which is what the editorial writer intended anyway. Typically, the opinion is written by one journalist in consultation with the publisher, editor and knowledgeable colleagues, and relies in good part on the newspaper’s own reporting.
In 1841, publisher Horace Greeley pioneered the stand-alone editorial page in the New York Tribune. The innovation, which separated the newspaper’s views from news articles, was widely adopted by other publishers.
Over the past 185 years, newspaper editorials have played a role in virtually every important social and justice movement in American history. William Lloyd Garrison’s call for the abolition of slavery in the Boston-based Liberator and the battle for women’s suffrage spearheaded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in The Revolution in New York City presaged and helped inspire similar calls for justice in the pages of local papers across America.
And when President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent in 1942, just one newspaper – The Bainbridge Review, on Bainbridge Island, Washington – called it out as the unconstitutional act it was. The paper saw the rounding up of citizens in its own community and would not stand silent.
During my career as editor-in-chief of USA Today and daily newspapers in Wisconsin, Florida and New York, I’ve reviewed thousands of editorials. I can tell you that on the local level, newspaper editorials tend to be about more mundane and yet essential topics like supporting local schools, monitoring the use of taxpayer dollars and calling out ineffective government processes.
In his book “Outrage, Passion & Common Sense” on historic editorials, journalist Michael Gartner began by quoting legendary journalist William Allen White on their importance:
“The editorial is the soul of the newspaper. Maybe the heart and the soul. And on a good newspaper that knows and understands and loves its hometown, or its home country, the editorial is the heart of the town, or nation as well.”
Unfortunately, in a trend that began four years ago, editorials are quickly disappearing. Nominations for the Pulitzer Prize for editorials peaked in 1995 with 101 entries, but declined to just 25 this year, according to Pulitzer Prizes administrator Marjorie Miller. This led to combining editorials with other opinion pieces into a single category moving forward.
Some news companies have concluded that local editorials aren’t in their interests. Editorials and endorsements have largely been jettisoned, along with the men and women who used their institutional knowledge to look out for their communities.
Gannett, now USA Today Co. Inc. and the largest newspaper company in the U.S., and Lee Enterprises, the third largest, led the scaling back of local editorials beginning in 2022.
“In their place, the (Lee) company distributed to its papers standardized editorial pages consisting of commentary from national columnists and its editorial board, wrote Paul Farhi for Nieman Reports when the change was made. "The change might have been a boon for those seeking yet another opinion about presidential politics, Congress, and international affairs, but it did little for commentary about events occurring down the street from Lee’s 77 daily newspapers.”
Gannett was candid about its reasons, saying that editorials were “frequently cited” by readers as a reason for canceling their subscriptions. Speaking truth to power was affecting the bottom line.
A group of Gannett editors were also quoted as saying, “Readers don’t want us to tell them what to think,” according to The Washington Post.
In my experience, that’s a straw man. Good editorials don’t dictate. They’re actually a balancing of ideas, looking out for a community with the perspective of a longtime and loyal resident who has seen it all. In fact, USA Today pioneered dual editorials, one offering its view, the other a differing perspective.
Granted, local editorials will yield fewer online clicks than major news or sports stories. But recent research indicates that readers remain hungry for the public accountability of government officials.
“As they have for the past four decades, most Americans say criticism from news organizations keeps political leaders from doing things they shouldn’t,” a Pew Research study found in 2024.
Despite the steady decline in daily newspaper editorials, I believe there remain ways for news organizations to restore the spirit of editorials in an economical and high-impact model. Some suggestions for today’s newsrooms:
1. Publish editorials on an as-needed basis. They don’t have to appear daily, but if published only when something absolutely needs to be addressed, the community will take notice. Give them the authoritative local take that no one else can.
2. Create a community editorial board composed of civic-minded residents with distinct and diverse viewpoints and open minds. Identify the most important issues facing your community and ask the board members to explore them, looking for consensus, but acknowledging legitimate points from all sides. Publish an editorial at least once a month and promote it heavily.
3. Collaborate with any other news outlets in your town to reinstate endorsement interviews. In a decades-long tradition, newspapers routinely invited incumbents and those running against them to discuss why they would best serve the community. Ask the tough questions and leave it to each outlet how to use the end product. That could lead to differing endorsements by different outlets or simply a comprehensive Q&A that the entire community sees. Public officials would be hard-pressed to skip the interview if their opponents’ views are getting broad local exposure.
Any one of these approaches would help reinstate the accountability of public officials at a fraction of the costs once incurred by legacy news media.
In 1791, the first generation of Americans demanded that freedom of the press be part of the Constitution, counting on journalists to serve as a check on corruption and the abuse of power. Some debts are never fully paid.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Ken Paulson, Middle Tennessee State University
Read more: Violence against the media isn’t new – history shows why it largely disappeared and has now returned Local newspapers can help reduce polarization with opinion pages that focus on local issues Claims of ideological bias among the media may be overblown
I have no ties to research institutions, foundations or news sources cited in this article. There are two companies cited as leading the phase-out of editorials. I edited USA Today and other Gannett properties, as noted in the column.
