research for my genre

For my initiating action project on animal rights, my genre is going to be an editorial. I did a bit of research and found out some interesting information that I never knew about editorials.

Basically, editorials are a person's views on current events. They aren't news, but rather opinions based on facts. The main reason why an editorial writer writes one in the first place is to express his or her opinions on a fact or hotly debated issue. Generally, editorial writers have a lot of freedom in what they say in their writing, but their finished pieces have to be based on facts, not solely opinions. Also, editorial page editors under each newspaper have the final say before the editorials are published. This is to maintain the newspaper's credibility. Some issues most frequently chosen by editorial writers are concerning politics and elected officials in towns, the environment, and the economy. The editorials I found on the NY Times website weren't any longer or shorter than the average newspaper article.

I think the great thing about editorials is that their writers have freedom to express their opinions. They are not just spitting out facts like regular newspaper articles. Editorial writers are able to interject their ideas in with the facts, making for interesting and thought-provoking reading. Editorials enable their readers to consider both sides of an issue and either disagree or agree with the author.

I think editorials are a refreshing break from the very cut-and-dry world of regular newspaper reporting. They are a great thing to read if you are on the fence about a certain issue.

http://people.howstuffworks.com/newspaper3.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/