Here’s my argument about why (esp post Trump op-ed debacle) publishers should consider separating opinion and news content onto separate domains and brands. niemanlab.org/2018/10/trumps…
Core points: 1. Journalism is (in part) a set of important norms about how to relate to facts and the truth, but the public doesn’t understand those norms. Mixing content that follows them with content that doesn’t is a big source of confusion.
2. This didn't matter as much when there was an "opinion page." Now all content is atomized and looks the same in a feed. Different formatting for op-ed articles isn't enough of a cue to register with most readers.
3. Even well-informed news readers are surprised when they find out how little fact-checking happens in the opinion section.
4. Why not just fact-check opinion articles? The intent of opinion (persuasion) and good journalism (revelation of truths) remain different. If journalism matters, this difference matters.
5. And from an algorithmic point of view, assessing credibility by domain is difficult when the credibility and epistemic process of individual articles fluctuates wildly.
6. Both opinion and journalism are important media products. But they serve different needs and are produced in different ways. And there's an infinite amount of space on the Internet for them to spread out into!
