In practice there is little or no distinction. The list of top articles always includes opinion pieces, the choice of “neutral” fact articles to publish (and the headlines used) signals bias, and on a basic common sense level a newspaper isn’t going to publish an opinion piece that goes against the opinions of their workers/owners. Every time an opinion piece is published that goes against this, it’s a huge brouhaha.
Interestingly on another note, opinion writers are often actually less qualified than you’d expect, because the business model of a newspaper doesn’t really work for accumulating expertise vs. a specialized magazine/Substack / etc. The only way to have consistent opinion pieces is to have a generalist, not a specialist.
Interestingly on another note, opinion writers are often actually less qualified than you’d expect, because the business model of a newspaper doesn’t really work for accumulating expertise vs. a specialized magazine/Substack / etc. The only way to have consistent opinion pieces is to have a generalist, not a specialist.