A different perspective of opinion editorials

So in class we defined opinion editorials as being a somewhat reported article with opinion spread throughout it. When my group was asked to lead discussion in class we decided that we would have three different sources and have our class members place each source on a scale. On one end would be journalism, and on the other end would be fiction. Our goal was to keep the sources a secret from the class so it would not sway the class one way or another. We wanted them to focus only on the words being written rather than the source that was writing them. The first source that we chose was a blog post by Perez Hilton on Charlie Sheen. Hilton technically followed the guidelines that we set as a class that defined an opinion editorial. He gave direct quotes from Sheen, and he was obviously very sarcastic in his tone. Hilton gave facts, his opinion, and was very sarcastic. The class ultimately decided that the post did not give enough information to be considered an opinion editorial, but they placed source number one closer to the side of journalism than fiction. The second source that we chose was definitely a true opinion editorial. It was taken from the LA Times, and it discussed gay protestors rallying at soldiers funerals. The class put source two in a similar position to source number one. The final and third source we chose to share with the class was actually the script to Stephen Colbert’s at the White House Press Corps Dinner. He said things like, “By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Someone from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail.” Obviously, Colbert being a comedian it was very sarcastic and humorous. The class decided that source number three was off the chart of the fiction side. It was really amusing to go back to show the class the publication of each source. It really helped to show that there can be opinion editorials all over the place, ones that people wouldn’t always necessarily recognize to be opinion editorials. I think the class really benefitted from the discussion. It was a way to look outside the box and really see that there are a lot of different ways to look at pieces of writing. Even though Perez Hilton is considered to be a blogger it was interesting to see that we kind of tricked the class when they had to choose where to put that source on the scale. There were definitely some students in the class that didn’t agree with where to put that source. They actually didn’t want to put the source on the scale at all, because they didn’t think that there was enough information given to draw a conclusion. After we revealed that the source was Perez Hilton those few were happy that they stood their ground, that they were fooled by our trick of hiding the author. It was a fun, different way to look at opinion editorials. The moral of the story is in a way don’t judge a book by its cover. Don’t rule certain things out because if you look at them from a different perspective they may be different than what you would have perceived.