What STAT’s opinion section is trying to do

This piece was adapted from a recent First Opinion newsletter. Sign up to receive the First Opinion newsletter every Sunday.

Recently, I made an appeal on Twitter/X (sigh) and Bluesky, asking people to name opinion pieces that stood out to them. As the editor of STAT’s First Opinion section, I periodically teach workshops for academics, wonks, and other experts on how to write for the public, and I was looking to refresh my list of examples of what to do and, perhaps more importantly, what not to do to write engaging, persuasive pieces for general-interest readers.

I received some good suggestions (and am still looking for more — send me your favorites!). But the most thought-provoking response came from Michael J. Socolow, a media historian with the University of Maine: “Interesting question. My answer? None. Since @nytopinion retired the ‘Op ed’ in favor of ‘Guest EsWhsays’ I can’t think of an essay published that I found sufficiently surprising, counter-intuitive, and persuasive to force me to reconsider an opinion. (It used to happen),” he tweeted.

It’s an argument he made in Reason in 2021, when the New York Times opinion page officially embraced the grating term “guest essay.” In that piece, he traces the history of the New York Times op-ed page, which debuted Sept. 21, 1970. (In my head, the Earth, Wind, & Fire song “September” will henceforth be about op-eds. I just have to change the lyric “Do you remember/ The 21st night of September” to “The 21st morn of September.”)

The op-ed page, Socolow writes, “attempted to render the bitter divisions of the 1960s in text and image on newsprint. It emerged during an era of remarkable innovation and experimentation in U.S. media.” Part of that rendering was to capture the worst of the worst: “In its first two decades, the op-ed page fearlessly printed essays that were unquestionably offensive, dehumanizing, and even occasionally vile.” That included a 1978 op-ed defending Pol Pot.

Today, however, op-eds in the New York Times and elsewhere tend to argue for policies and perspectives that reinforce what the readers — and, let’s be honest, the editors — already believe.

And, as an opinion editor who believes in the genre, I get that. Publishing an op-ed that my colleagues and peers disagree with is tough. Nevertheless, I want to do it, and I want to do it more. I don’t want to publish the vile — I will not publish the 2020s medical industry equivalent of defending Pol Pot. I don’t even want to think about what that might be.

But I do want to publish First Opinions that challenge readers to think about topics in new ways. That means avoiding those essays that preach to the choir — yes, we all want lower drug prices and more equity in the health care system! — in favor of those that say something new and challenging.

This is about keeping things interesting, of course. But there’s more to it than that. I want to provoke discussion and force people to think more deeply about their knee-jerk beliefs by having experts make well-supported arguments. (One example of that: a piece I ran earlier this year asking whether we’re talking too much about the teen mental health crisis.)

I also think that sometimes op-eds offer a way for us to get prominent people on the record with bad opinions. This doesn’t mean I think it’s OK to publish something sloppy and overheated for the sake of clicks, of course. But I do think there is value in sharing unpopular good-faith arguments.

When an unpopular op-ed goes viral, opinion editors are often eviscerated online. But I think those angry readers misunderstand something. Op-eds are not — and this needs to be said — editorials. Sometimes the two words are used interchangeably, even by people who are media-savvy. But they are distinct: The op-ed is the opinion of the signed author, and an editorial is the opinion of a publication’s editorial board. At STAT, we don’t have an editorial board. Every opinion is clearly marked as such, with the author’s name, affiliation, and any conflicts of interest disclosed.

I want First Opinion to harken back to the original spirit of the op-ed as a form. So what’s your unpopular but strongly held opinion? Submit it to me.

Better yet: I want more debates. I think that good-faith debate between two people who respect each other and disagree in good faith is far more useful for readers than an opinion piece in which the author can only anticipate objections. There are plenty of things that are not worth debating: Are vaccines good? But there are so many places within the territory STAT covers where I think that debate can be very productive. So: Are you an expert in your field who disagrees with someone you respect on an important issue? Do the two of you want to debate it publicly, going back and forth two or three times each? Email me, I beg of you.

Finally, I wanted to call your attention to something First Opinion is experimenting with: letters to the editor. Going forward, every piece in First Opinion will end with a call for readers to respond with a letter of up to 400 words. While we can’t publish all of them, I will read them all, and we will post the most useful and insightful responses every Saturday on First Opinion.