Using the Op/Ed As a PR Writing Tool

August 2014--The Gazette devotes a whole page to three Op/Eds from MMU.

 

Read for Sept. 23, 2024: Several years ago, before “Black lives matter” was a #BLM movement, there already was anxiety in this country over the pattern of local law enforcement being more violent in their interactions with minority, especially Black, communities.

Hang on. This is not going to be a liberal rant about systemic racism or white privilege, although I agree that both are real.

But, in CO 280 that year (maybe 2012 or so), I required students to maintain a personal blog. Earlier that fall, a Black man had made headlines by being shot by police, and that triggered an emotional reaction from one of my students, a Black woman.

So she wrote a blog post about it.

In that post, she described how anxious she was about her younger brother and her fear that he could end up being shot due to some interaction with police. She described how he had been stopped for speeding, and was shaken and afraid during that experience. And how this was her reaction, too, because she and her brother are Black. “I don’t look at police the same way you do,” she stated, addressing an imaginary white reader.

I thought it was a powerful blog post—and told her so. And I said she should submit it to The Gazette to get it published. She was unsure, but agreed to let me send a link to her post to The Gazette, asking them to consider it.

And they did. They printed it on the newspaper as an Op/Ed. An "Op/Ed" is a guest opinion column that a newspaper typically published on its daily editorial page of opinion writing, or in its Sunday opinion section. More on the name in a minute.

Op/Eds and related forms of writing have great value in PR. The audience for editorial pages is not large, but tends to be the best educated and informed members of the readership. As your style text notes, Op/Eds are still “one of the most powerful tools available for influencing the opinion of a target audience.” They tend to be read by opinion leaders in a community, and can have profound impact.

One more anecdote to illustrate that point: In 2013, I saw a song video that deeply impressed me. I follow a Canadian high school English teacher, who is also a novelist and poet, on WordPress, and she posted a link to an Eric Bogle song, “Green Fields of France,” on her blog to mark the day on Nov. 11, 2013. Nov. 11, our Veteran’s Day, is a sort of Memorial Day for British countries, particularly in remembrance the fallen of World War I, which the song was about.

I was moved. That’s what a powerful blog post (or music video) can do, by the way, and something you should keep in mind in your blog posting. Move your blog readers.

The song concerns how pointless World War I was. The “Great War” settled none of the tensions or issues that caused it to break out, and in fact set in motion the much larger cataclysm of World War II, which was really the sequel war, or World War I, Chapter 2. As the song lyrics state: “The suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame, the killing and dying it was all done in vain …. it (war) happened again and again and again and again.”

I was a history major (double majored in communication) as an undergraduate, and I’m a student of World War II in particular, probably because my father served in the U.S. Army in that war. I already knew WWI had a huge global impact, and this song was a timely reminder of how deep that impact was. World War I, in reality, created the modern world we still inhabit today. Anyway, I was moved to stand up in a faculty meeting a few days later and suggest Mount Mercy should plan some public events to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, coming in 2014.

The idea resonated, and a group of us met in spring 2014 to plan events. What evolved was a whole series that started in August (the war started in August, too) and ended on Nov. 11, the symbolic end of the war (although in reality it was November four years of slaughter later).

2014 World War I series logo. It wasn't the "Fall Faculty Series" until the second one in 2015.

I was on fire—I loved the idea for these faculty presentations. And I wanted to promote this series, which we called “A Century of Glory & Shame: Mount Mercy Reflect on how World War I Made Today.” I was the organizer of the series and one of its speakers. Other speakers included Dr. David Klope, my colleague in communication; and Allison McNeese, a professor of history.

That summer, at a downtown farmer’s market, I said hello to Todd Dorman (a Gazette opinion columnist, and yes, you should read his stuff) at The Gazette’s booth. I told Todd about the Mount Mercy series, and suggested that I could get some Op/Eds on the topic to The Gazette. Dorman didn’t promise anything, but encouraged me—in fact, he liked the idea so much, he said he was willing to pitch the idea of a whole page devoted to the series to his editors at The Gazette.

I queried my speakers, and Allison McNeese (history) and David Klope (communication) were willing to try writing essays to submit. I wrote a column explaining why the series was important, and they each wrote columns based on the talks that they were planning. Dave was speaking on World War I propaganda, and Allison was speaking on how Iowa tried to limit free speech during World War I.

We submitted--they were published and you can see the results. The PDF of the page on Brightspace, by the way, should allow you to read the columns on the World War I topic--they are good sample Op/Eds.

A full-page ad in a newspaper is very expensive. Mount Mercy got a full page of publicity for free here.

That series turned into something unexpected. Before fall 2014, Mount Mercy would occasionally, about four times a year, have a faculty member give a public evening lecture, and turnout was usually modest. You felt good if 20 people came. This series, frankly in part due those Op/Eds, turned into something much bigger.

I recall the surreal feeling on the first night of the World War I series when Betty Cherry was packed with over 100 people. One night, we had the chair of the nursing program speak about the flu pandemic partly caused by World War I. We sensed Flaherty Community Room might not handle her crowd (so many nursing students), and reserved the Chapel of Mercy, which holds about 300. It was standing room only.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph and Kaiser Wilhelm, what in heaven was going on? We had hundreds of community members who had never set foot on The Hill suddenly showing up for 12 events over the course of three months.

I was exhausted by the end of that fall semester. But I vividly recall the end of the final faculty meeting that term—Laurie Hamen, who was then president of MMU, came up to me. “Joe,” she said, “congratulations on that World War I series, that was fantastic. What are you going to do for next fall?”

To paraphrase Cage the Elephant, there ain’t no rest for the wicked.

The huge responses was not entirely due to the Op/Eds. But I’m sure that a free page in the Sunday paper played a part in the resounding success of the first of what we know today as the “Fall Faculty Series.” To summarize: Op/Eds can boost your signal; they can, if done well, resonate and persuade.

Op/Eds share a form of newspaper opinion column writing, something I have done many times over the course of my careers as a journalist and as a professor. More on Op/Eds:

• I call them “Op/Eds” because the name does not mean “opinion-editorial,” as your text implies. It’s short for “opposite the editorial,” and refers to the fact that when The New York Times started regularly publishing guest columns, it did so on the page of the paper that faced its editorial page—the term originally meant “opposite editorial” due to that history. Your style text is not wrong, I just wanted to note the real history of the term.

• Op/Eds are typically shorter than the text implies. 800 words would be a monster. A typical op/ed is 600 to 650 words, and think of that as your target if you write one. That is, by the way, not terribly different from the average blog post.

• Op/Eds are not the only form of direct opinion writing in PR. As your text implies, and we’ll come back to this later, there are “advertorials,” or ads that explain an organization’s point of view. A “letter to the editor,” while it does not have the same impact as an Op/Ed, is a valid way to inject ideas into the community discourse. “White papers” are often available via the web. And many organizations maintain blogs that express their point of view. Even YouTube or TicTok videos can express points of view. Note that for the fall series, when we had an Op/Ed, it was on a topic a faculty member was researching anyway--and that's often how it works in PR, too. You identify who in your organization is the expert on the topic to write the Op/Ed because they already have the background. Plus, writing an Op/Ed creates raw material and research you re-purpose and use for other forms of PR writing.

• While you write an Op/Ed because you have an opinion, remember that they are NOT a form of personal, emotional declaration. Your goal, especially if it’s a PR Op/Ed, is to sell an idea, not to offend. You may have to rebut or refute a falsehood—but do so in a calm way that treats “the other side” with some respect and dignity. It’s fun to rant but people don’t always listen well when you shout.

To write an Op/Ed, you need to first articulate for yourself what the point is. If it’s for a PR purpose, that point of view must promote and PR needs of your organization. Editors will judge whether an Op/Ed is published, and will be looking for provocative, but thoughtful, original writing on a matter of public interest.

It’s not hard to figure out how to submit an Op/Ed. Newspapers are hungry for them and generally will tell you how to submit them on their web site. As your text notes, it’s possible to also write them for trade publications—again, such publications will let you know how to submit such a piece of writing. In structure, they are just Word documents that avoid any clutter or bad keyboarding—they follow the same structure as your feature stories did.

The Gazette has a “submit a letter” link on its home page that leads to a page that describes how to send in either a guest column (Op/Ed) or letter to the editor. And if you write a blog post that would make a good Gazette Op/Ed, it’s because it follows what the Gazette says it’s looking for.

From: https://www.thegazette.com/submit-a-letter-or-commentary: “Sadly, we can’t publish every letter or column that we receive, but we do read and are grateful for every submission. Sometimes, your letters make The Gazette editorial board and staff aware of an issue we hadn’t known about. Always, they help us understand what people are thinking and saying in the community.
“For publication, we especially look for letters and columns that share a unique perspective; that make us think. We look for writers who have spent time and attention developing their own opinions, rather than simply repeating other people’s arguments. Write in your own voice. We’re much more interested in why you feel the way you do than in what you think is wrong with people who disagree with you.”

The Gazette specifies letters should be 250 words or fewer; Op/Eds should be 400 to 600 words. I’ve usually pitched 650 words as my Op/Eds, and The Gazette has published them without cutting them down. There may be papers that, as your text says, will accept 800 words, but don’t assume The Gazette or most other media outlets would want that many. Aim for a 600-word limit, absent other clear guidance from an editor.

Besides the Gazette, by the way, I have published an Op/Ed in The Des Moines Register, and recently, for four years, I was a regular opinion columnist on media matters in The Corridor Business Journal.

In terms of how to write an Op/Ed, your style guide is correct in its advice. The one point it goes on too long about is whether it’s ethical to get paid—don’t worry much about that because you probably won’t be.

Anyway, I consider Op/Eds to be a specialized variety of the feature story. One of the structures that can be used for a feature story is the “circle,” where the story starts with an anecdote, gives information on the topic, and closes by completing the opening anecdote. In my experience, Op/Ed writing often is effective when it follows that idea—it starts with a compelling opening, explores the idea it raises, and gives the reader a sense of closure by coming back to its introduction.

Whether you use the circle story structure, you do need to begin and end strong in writing an Op/Ed. Unlike almost all other PR media writing, it’s also OK to use first person—“I” and “we”—or second person—“you” in Op/Ed writing because you are expressing a personal point of view.

One of the sample Op/Eds I posted for you was the one I wrote when my father-in-law died. “Veteran never far away” begins with my granddaughter laughing when I toss maple seeds for her. It ends with how that laughter echoes that of her now departed great-grandfather. It’s written in the circle structure.

That opening anecdote is absolutely true, by the way. I am careful in any journalistic writing I do to only use imagination transparently—that is, if I have conjured or imagined a hypothetical scene, the reader clearly knows it. (Like the maple tree helicopter thing, the bathroom story in the Op/Ed about Spanish is also a true story.) And besides starting strong and ending strong, another piece of advice for Op/Ed writing is: Do good reporting. Verify all of your information carefully. Do adequate research.

Google and Wikipedia exist so that you can use them during your writing. But be careful—if you borrow an idea, let the reader know where it comes from. If a paper discovered you copied anybody’s stuff, they will never, ever publish another word from you. Always write your own original words.

As a PR writer, your job may entail your soliciting members of your organization to write Op/Eds when you know someone has something to state that would advance your PR strategy. So, you need to know how to write an Op/Ed to be able to coach someone. Allison and Dave did have a writing coach for theirs (me), and I also did help Dr. Dennis Dew with another sample Op/Ed you can read on Brightspace.

But you may already be doing that—that is, writing something that is an Op/Ed in its approach. They are called blog posts. Try to make your next one (coming soon) so good that the Gazette would want to print it.

Extra credit if that should happen. And you know that promise of extra credit is true, because in media writing, I never lie.

Style notes: Capitalizing Op/Ed in this post probably violates AP style. I am doing that to emphasize my topic. Capitalizing Black as a racial identity is a relatively new AP rule, but is correct. "White" is not capitalized because it's a descriptive adjective not always or commonly used as a racial identity, again, I used the term correctly according to AP style.