Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. –Mark Twain

Each Friday, when you pick up the latest edition of The Herald, you are presented with a mixture of news stories and opinion pieces, with the former appearing on the first couple of pages and the latter restricted to opinion pages such as the Your Voice pages.

For example, if you go to the first Our Voice page, usually Page 8 in The Herald, you’ll notice an article labeled “Our View” appearing in the upper left hand column.

In many commercial and university newspapers, this page would be labeled “Opinion Page” or “Editorial Page” and would be characterized by various kinds of opinion writing such as an editorial, letters to the editor and personal columns. In journalistic jargon, when you hear the word “editorial” think “opinion” and when you read the “Our View” in The Herald know that you are reading an opinion piece, not an objective, neutral news story.

So what is an editorial? What is an editorial’s function? Who writes the editorial? How does it differ from, say, a news article appearing on the front page of the newspaper?

In the words of that sage, prolific, modern-day online repository of answers to just about everything imaginable, i.e. Wikipedia, “Articles appearing on a newspaper’s editorial pages represent the views of the newspaper’s editor and/or its editorial board. Most editorial pieces take the form of an essay or thesis, using arguments to promote a point of view. Newspapers often publish editorial pieces that are in line with their publication’s editorial slants. … dissenting opinions are often given space specifically to promote balance and discussion.”

At The Herald, the editorial board is comprised of the top student editors of the paper, who meet weekly to discuss possible topics on which to take a position. The names of the board members appear in the upper left hand corner of Page 8.

To give you an idea on how the process works, let’s say that the board read the quote from Mark Twain at the top of this column and the students decide that the issue of the week will be “whether the world owes college graduates a living” or not. The student board members will discuss the issue, gather information about the issue, explore what the Bible has to say about it and eventually reach a consensus on whether they support or reject Twain’s hypothesis that the world does not owe us a living.

Only one student authors the Our View editorial after he or she interviews several sources, such as CU faculty, staff and/or students on the topic. An editorial first presents an issue, lays a foundation of the facts, and then stakes out a position and offers a solution.

While there is only one author, the editorial’s viewpoint represents the consensus opinion of the student editorial board, but not necessarily the opinion of Cornerstone University, the CU administration, staff, faculty or student body. And that is why you’ll not see the student author’s byline or name, since the editorial is not one person’s opinion. Instead, the editorial represents a collective representation of the student newspaper’s editorial board.

Alan Blanchard, associate professor, is director of CU’s - www.cornerstone.edu/journalism