Journalism Studies, Volume 6, Number 1, 2005, pp.

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Source and Content Diversity in Op-Ed Pages: assessing editorial strategies in The New York Times and the Washington Post
ANITA G. DAY and GUY GOLAN Louisiana State University, USA

ABSTRACT A content analysis of opinion editorial (Op-Ed) articles published in the Washington Post and The New York Times between 1999 and 2003 was used to assess source and issue stand diversity on three salient issues. The study revealed that editors in both newspapers allowed only limited diversity in its source selection and issue stand on the discussion of gay marriages, affirmative action and the death penalty. The authors identify the lack of diversity as inconsistent with the original stated purpose of the Op-Ed as a forum for the articulation of diverse viewpoints on salient issues and call upon future studies to further examine diversity of sources and issue stands in Op-Ed pages. KEY WORDS: Content Analysis, Editorial, Journalists, Opinion Op-Eds, Public Debate

Introduction The importance of the opinion editorial (Op-Ed), a recent forum in the marketplace of ideas for fostering the exchange of diverse issue stands, has received limited attention from mass communication scholars (Ciofalo and Traverso, 1994). Further, the role of the press in fostering public debate has been ignored in research on the international press. Instead, research has concentrated largely on the role of the press as emerging media systems in countries such as Romania (Gross, 1996) and South Africa (Tomaselli, 1989). These studies examine the press as it is transformed from a statesanctioned political arm to one that reflects a traditional Western commercial composition. Other studies of the international press in Germany (Humphreys, 1990) and Japan (Kasza, 1993) concentrate on defining the role between the state, public policy and the mass media. Even studies that address the role of the press in the United States have largely concentrated only on the ability of the press to foster political participation rather than debate (Ansolabeherre et al., 1994; Cook, 1998; Gilliam and Iyengar, 2000; Kahn and Kenney, 1999; Valentino et al.,

2002; Wattenberg and Brians, 1999). This study hopes to expand previous research and examine the role of the press in political debate in the United States by examining several public affairs issues in the Op-Ed pages of two major national US papers. The particular question here is the relative success of the Op-Ed as a forum for public officials, academics, experts, advocates and other forms of public intellectuals to articulate diverse opinions on salient issues. Do newspaper gatekeepers select Op-Ed contributions that reinforce the papers worldview as typically expressed by the papers columnists or do guest contributors provide opposing views of an issue? The current study examined Op-Eds that appeared in The New York Times and the Washington Post between January 1999 to December 2003 concentrating on the issues of the death penalty, gay marriage and affirmative action. Coverage of these issues may influence the public agenda of issue (McCombs and Shaw, 1972) and/or attribute saliency (Golan and Wanta, 2001; Kiousis, 2003) as predicted by the agenda-setting hypothesis.

ISSN 1461-670X print/ISSN 1469-9699 online/05/010061-11 # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1461670052000328212

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If Op-Ed editors employ a strategy of source and content diversity, they are likely to provide readers with a balanced exposure of competing issue stands. This is important as the original purpose of the Op-Ed was to provide a vehicle for divergent opinions from that normally expressed by the news and editorial comments of the newspaper (Salisbury, 1988). The current study aims to contribute to Op-Ed research by analyzing the source and content diversity strategies of Op-Ed editors from The New York Times and the Washington Post in order to determine if the Op-Ed page of the newspaper provides an open forum for debate on salient issues. A Forum for Diverse Issue Stands: a review of literature The Opinion Editorial Within a year of The New York Times s launch of its Op-Ed page in September 1970, several major newspapers such as the Washington Post , the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times (Stonecipher, 1979) had established their own Op-Ed page within the same location of the newspaper (Salisbury, 1988). The function of the Op-Ed was designed as a forum for the articulation of multiple ideas in an attempt to promote public debate on salient issues. The page would offer a window in the world, particularly that scene which for one reason or another . . . was not present on its news and editorial comment (Salisbury, 1988, p. 317). The Op-Eds purpose in these national newspapers then was to provide experts, the public and policy makers a space to present and argue different sides of the public agenda (Stonecipher, 1979). Specifically the objective of the Op-Ed for The New York Times was to afford a greater opportunity for exploration of issues and presentation of new insights and new ideas by writers and thinkers who have no institutional connection [with the paper] (The New York Times , 1970, p. 42). Rosenfeld (2000) contends that The New York Times hoped to attract new readership through increased content diversity. According to Rosenfeld, The New York Times expected to shake the

liberal counterpoints of the papers editors by hiring conservative non-journalist, William Safire as a regular Op-Ed columnist (2000). Rosenfeld said, good Op-Ed pages now provide an entry into the debate for experts, dissenters, and survivors of earlier battles (2000, p. 7). Despite the importance of the Op-Ed page as a journalistic forum for diverse opinions from expert and private citizen alike and its subsequent criticisms, mass communication scholarship has largely ignored the Op-Ed page. As Ciofalo and Traverso (1994) state: the issue of the public forum in the Op-Ed page has been largely unexplored except by the practitioners themselves and media critics (p. 54). Little else has changed in the past decade. A limited focus in major journalism and communication academic journals on the Op-Ed has produced a dearth of research on the role of the Op-Ed to further a diversity of ideas. Rather, research on Op-Eds has centered on advertisements in Op-Ed pages (Brown et al., 2001), public relation strategies on Op-Ed pages (Smith and Heath, 1990), and political preferences between publishers and editorial page editors (Kapoor and Kang, 1993). Media Gatekeeping As noted by Shoemaker et al. (2001), the gatekeeping concept is one of the oldest in the field of mass communication. As described by the authors, gatekeeping refers to the process by which potential news is narrowed and shaped into the actual news that is transmitted by the news media (p. 233). David White (1950) applied psychologist Kurt Lewins (1947) concepts of item selection around the dinner table to the field of mass communication. Whites study revealed that news content had to pass through the gates of the editor before it could be news. He found that the news editors (Mr. Gates) personal beliefs and his knowledge of news routines were influential on the news selection process. Shoemaker and Reese (1996) explain further that several key variables shape the gatekeeping process: the personal views and roles of media workers, media routines, media organizations, external pressures, and ideology.

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The news selection process is also derived from the socialization of reporters to the normative behavior of the organizations structure (Tuchman, 1978). This allows for the right news to be reported and the right manner of its interpretation to be presented. This helps equalize, or balance, the meaning of reality and maintain the status quo. As such, Stephen Reese (1994) observed that in US television news, gatekeepers implicitly define the limits of discourse on an issue and help maintain the status quo by their selection of expert and commentator sources. Based on the identified purpose of the Op-Ed section as a forum for the expression of diverse viewpoints on salient issues, it is likely that opinion gatekeepers would aim to provide their readers with a diversity of both source and issue stands. Diversity in the Op-Ed A study by Kapoor and Kang (1993) looked at the political preferences of editorial page editors and publishers to find that publishers did not exercise monolithic control on editorial content. Editorial page editors were free to provide divergent political views on the editorial pages of the paper in contrast to the views held by the paper. A study by Golan and Wanta (2004) found such diversity in the strategy employed by Op-Ed editors of The New York Times concerning the IsraelPalestine conflict. The results indicated diverse content and source issue stands between newspaper columnist and guest contributors on this single issue. Yet, a Song (2003) study questioned whether ideological orientations of news media rather than content and source strategies of editors serve to guide the selection of Op-Ed pieces. They do. Finding that Op-Ed pages tend not to provide diverse perspectives in relationship to the ideological orientations of the newspaper, issues of public interest were left to slant off in one direction. The blame comes from the witting or unwitting selection of guest contributors to the Op-Ed pages by Op-Ed page editors. Croteau and Hoynes (1994) found specific instances of limited source diversity in television on the public affairs programs Nightline and the McNeil Lehr Newshour. With a parade

of usual suspects, expert opinion on these two programs closely followed that of the US governments perspective. As Croteau and Hoynes (1994) suggests, experts who appear on public affairs programming, by invitation only for one reason or another, limit debate and allow it to fall within a short range of opinions. Like Croteau and Hoynes (1994), Benjamin Pages (1996) criticism of the debate in the Op-Ed section of The New York Times brings to focus the limits of such a forum for robust debate on public affairs issues in the nations leading newspaper when source and content diversity are virtually non-existent. Page refers to the debate on the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times in the autumn of 1990 concerning the Gulf War as an illusionary representation of a full and vigorous debate on the war. As a multitude of space was devoted to the issue with letters to the editor, editorials and columns, little source and content diversity in the discussion of this issue was to be found. Instead of a multitude of diverse voices, most comments were filed by Times editors, regular columnists employed by the Times or guest columnist holding mainstream positions in officialdom or academia. The current study aims to expand the current scholarship on debate in the Op-Ed pages by moving beyond the examination of a single issue (Golan and Wanta, 2004) to the analysis of three issues in two leading national newspapers. Research Questions The purpose of this study is to analyze the content and source diversity strategy of The New York Times and Washington Post Op-Ed editors on the issues of affirmative action, the death penalty and gay marriage. As noted by Greenberg (2004), these issues were all salient in the most recent presidential election as the result of half a century of increasingly heated partisan battles between Democrats and Republicans in Americas political debate and culture war on faith, family values and how people should live their lives. The period of examination in this study is marked by a series of news events captivating the publics attention to this culture

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war including the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling upholding gay marriages and the Supreme Court decision upholding the Michigan Law School affirmative action admissions policy. If the Op-Ed pages are truly designed to promote public discourse on issues of public policy, then they ought to include opinion articles that articulate diverse issue stands. Therefore, we are trying to answer the following research questions: R1: How balanced was the selection of guest columnist to newspaper columnists in the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times and Washington Post ? R2: Did the Op-Ed editors select guest contributors whose views reinforced the issue stands of its columnists or allow for divergent opinions? A Content Analysis of The New York Times and the Washington Post A content analysis of Op-Ed articles published in The New York Times and the Washington Post between January 1, 1999 and December 31, 2003 was conducted in the current study. The unit of analysis was the individual Op-Ed article. Using the key words gay marriage, affirmative action, death penalty and editorial on a Lexis-Nexis search, the current study identified 150 Op-Ed articles from the selected period. More specifically, 38 articles dealt with gay marriages, 67 with affirmative action and 45 with the death penalty. It ought to be noted that these articles represent a population rather than a sample. The number of articles analyzed seemed sufficient when compared to other comparable studies from recent years. For example, Hallock and Rodgers (2003) used 142 Op-Ed articles from two newspapers in their analysis, Golan and Wanta (2004) analyzed the diversity of content in 42 Op-Ed articles published in The New York Times and Song (2003) analyzed 196 Op-Ed articles in his analysis of diversity in the Washington Post and Washington Times . All 150 Op-Ed articles were coded for the following variables:

. Newspaper. Whether the Op-Ed was published in The New York Times or the Washington Post. . Type . Whether the Op-Ed was written by a newspaper columnist or by a guest contributor. . Writer. Whether the article was written by a journalist (columnist), politician, academic, expert, advocate, religious leader or other. . Issue. Whether the article dealt with gay marriages, affirmative action or the death penalty as the primary subject of the Op-Ed. . Issue impact. Whether the article discussed the social, moral, political, legal, individual or other impact of the issue. For example, an article that argued These judicial pronouncements, therefore, constitute an appalling abnegation of popular sovereignty . . . courts that deny morality as a rational basis for legislation are not only undermining the moral fabric of society, they run directly counter to actual legislative practice in innumerable important areas of society (Raul, 2003) was coded as discussing the legal impact of the issue. . Affective. Whether the article was negative, neutral or positive towards the issue it discussed. For example, an article that argued In our racially stratified society, diversity is a necessary part of an effective college education. To attain such diversity, in turn, the explicit use of race in the admissions process is necessary (Loury, 2003) was coded as positive based on its support of affirmative action. An article arguing affirmative action metastasizes into a shapeless component of the spreading racial and ethnic spoils system . . . such arithmetic would have suited Nazi Germanys Nuremberg laws. It mocks Americas premises (Will, 2001) was coded as negative based on its opposition to affirmative action. . Criticism of individual. Whether the article criticized an individual politician, judge, religious figure, advocate, academic, individual citizen or other. For example an article that argued George W. Bush . . . from the very beginning, his often maladroit maneuvering on gay issues has looked more like triangulation than principle (Rauch, 2000) was coded as critical of a politician.

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. Criticism of organization. Whether the article criticized a political, legal, religious, advocacy, academic or other body or organization or society as a whole. For example an article that argued the government had no business policing people in their bedrooms . . . All of our amendments have been designed to expand the sphere of freedom, with one notorious exception: prohibition. We all know how that absurd federal power grab turned out (Simpson, 2003) was coded as critical of the government (political organization). . Issue outcome. Whether the article called for a change in status quo or supported the status quo. For example, an article that argued But if the meaning of marriage and the right to marital status is sufficiently defined with the reference to autonomy of the self . . . [in] certain intimate conduct, what principled, non arbitrary ground is there for denying the right of marriage to, say, a threesome whose members insist that it is necessary for their self-fulfillment through intimacy? (Will, 2003) was coded as supportive of the status quo since it argued for the continuation of the current policy on gay marriages. An article that argued . . .[the] United States . . . moral leadership is under challenge because of . . . the death penalty and violence in our society . . . [and that] there is no compelling statistical evidence that the death penalty is a greater deterrent to potential criminals than other forms of punishment . . . [since] some 300 million of our closest allies think capital punishment is cruel and unusual and it might be worthwhile to give it some further thought (Rohatyn, 2001) was coded as a call for a change in status quo since it argued

for a reexamination of current polices regarding the death penalty. In order to ensure inter-coder reliability of the content analysis, a second coder independently coded 10 percent of the Op-Ed articles (15 articles). Inter-coder reliability scores averaged 0.81 based on the Holsti formula (Holsti, 1969). This mean did not include the intercoder reliability scores for the newspaper and type variables that produced perfect alpha scores of 1.0. Source Diversity: who spoke Table 1 displays the source distribution of OpEd articles between columnist and guests for The New York Times and the Washington Post . The results indicate that the two papers adopted different strategies in their selection of sources in the discussion of the three issues. On the issue of gay marriage, The New York Times allowed for a diversity of sources with 58 percent of the OpEd articles written by guest contributors. The papers diverse use of sources is also reflected in its coverage of the death penalty issue with 55 percent of Op-Ed articles written by guests and 45 percent by columnists. On the issue of affirmative action, The New York Times s editors turned the discussion over to others with 79 percent of the articles written by guest contributors, while only allowing 21 percent of the issues discussion for their columnists. Overall, 65 percent of Op-Eds concerning the three issues were written by guest columnists while 35 percent of the articles were written by the newspapers columnists. These results indicate

Table 1. Distribution of Op-Ed articles between columnists and guest writers

Paper Writer Guest Columnist Total Guest Columnist Total Gay marriage 58% (12) 42% (9) 100% (21) 59% (10) 41% (7) 100% (17) Affirmative action 79% (22) 21% (6) 100% (28) 23% (9) 77% (30) 100% (39) Death penalty 55% (12) 45% (10) 100% (22) 18% (4) 82% (19) 100% (23) Total 65% (46) 35% (25) 100% (71) 29% (23) 71% (56) 100% (79)

New York Times

Washington Post

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that The New York Times adopted a strategy of allowing for a diversity of sources. The results in Table 1 suggest that The New York Times adopted a more encompassing diverse source strategy than the Washington Post . While Op-Ed coverage of gay marriages was fairly balanced between guest contributors (59 percent) and regular columnists (41 percent), such was not the case for the other two issues. The analysis shows that the majority of Op-Ed articles that dealt with affirmative action were written by Washington Post columnists (77 percent). The same strategy applied for the death penalty issue where Washington Post columnists accounted for nearly all Op-Ed articles (82 percent). The findings indicate that overall the Washington Post did not allow for diversity of sources as 71 percent of the overall Op-Ed articles were written by the newspapers columnists. This number is much higher than the comparable 35 percent found in The New York Times . The study results also identify academics and advocates as the key guest writers of Op-Ed articles in both the Washington Post and The New York Times . Of guest Op-Ed articles, 52 percent were written by academics, 32 percent were written by advocates, 9 percent were written by politicians, 2 percent by religious figures and 6 percent by others. Content Diversity: what they said Moving beyond the analysis of source diversity, the current study found interesting results relating to diversity in content. Analyzing the comments made by the two columnists that wrote more on one issue than other columnists at each paper finds repetitive frames used to justify each writers position. The New York Times columnist Bob Herbert used several of the same criticisms against the death penalty. Herbert painted the state of Texas in three stories as a zealous killing machine. His stereotype of inept public defenders are found in three stories while four stories justify abolishing the death penalty because it has been applied to the mentally ill. Herberts criticisms of Texas include statements such as Texas . . . champion of the

Western World when it comes to executions. . . the states awful appellate review system, a maddeningly dysfunctional apparatus. . . (2000) to . . .Texas, a state that all but worships at the altar of capital punishment. . . (2002) and Only the United States, Congo and Iran continue to execute people for offenses committed when they were juveniles. But that is not the issue on which Mr. Richardsons case */and life */hinges. His lawyer, Gino Battisti, is trying to convince the courts that it is a cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore a violation of the Eighth Amendment, to execute someone who is mentally retarded (Herbert, 2001). Writing for the Washington Post , William Raspberry defined the issue of affirmative action largely in black and white terms only. Raspberry made 64 references in nine stories on affirmative action framing the issue as one of blacks against whites compared to four frames of other minority designations, most notably Hispanics and Asians. Several examples include: blacks lag behind whites, white run institutions, black kids, black affluence, black households, whites, blacks, black children, white families, black achievement gap, etc. (1999a, 1999b, 2000a, 2000b, 2001a, 2001b, 2002, 2003a, 2003b). Table 2 provides a systematic display of the affective dimension of the comments provided above. This dimension measured whether the Op-Ed article discussed gay marriages, affirmative action or the death penalty in a negative, neutral or positive manner. An article critical of affirmative action was coded 1 indicating negative coverage. A neutral article was coded 2 and an Op-Ed that was supportive or positive of affirmative action was coded 3. Therefore, OpEds critical of gay marriages, affirmative action or the death penalty would have means lower than 2 and those articles favoring the issues/ programs would rank higher than 2. The results reflected in Table 2 suggest that Op-Ed editors pursued a limited diversity strategy, allowing slightly divergent opinions on these issues. The only real exception was the discussion of affirmative action in the Washington Post where columnist and guest greatly differed in opinion (1.36 differential) and The

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Table 2. Means of issue coverage (affective)a

Issue coverage (affective) Gay marriage Writer Guest Columnist Differential Overall Guest Columnist Differential Overall Guest Columnist Differential Overall

New York Times

2.60 3.00 0.40 2.81 2.54 2.35 0.19 2.50 1.91 1.00 0.91 1.50

Washington Post
2.30 2.71 0.41 2.47 2.77 1.41 1.36 1.73 1.10 1.75 0.65 1.22

Affirmative action

Death penalty

1 0/negative; 20/neutral; 3 0/positive.

New York Times s discussion of the death penalty (0.91 differential). The results in Table 2 suggest that The New York Times allowed for some diversity of opinion in Op-Ed articles that dealt with the issue of gay marriages. While The New York Times columnists were unanimously supportive of gay marriages (3.0), their guest contributors seemed more neutral (2.6). Still, it is clear that Op-Ed articles published in The New York Times on the issue primarily argued in favor of gay marriages with an overall mean of 2.81 suggesting a strong liberal orientation in the discussion of the gay marriage issue. For example, Nichols Kristof (2003) writes: The bottom line is that same-sex love is a mystery far more subtle than just a matter of biblical injunction */just as interracial love has turned out to be . . . someday, we will regard opposition to gay marriage as equally obtuse and old fashioned. An analysis of the affective scores for the Washington Post point to similar results. While the papers Op-Ed columnist were strongly in favor of gay marriages (2.71), guest contributors averaged a lower mean of 2.3. Overall, Op-Ed articles published in the Washington Post averaged a mean of a 2.47 suggesting a more neutral discussion of the gay marriage issue than The New York Times . For example, Jonathan Rauch (1999) writes: It has never been clear to me why discouraging stable gay relationships in favor of sex in parks and porn shops is good for the American family, or anyone else.

The results indicate that on the issue of gay marriages, both papers allowed for some diversity of opinion with a mean difference of 0.40 between the means of guests and columnists. The results in Table 2 indicate different findings concerning diversity of opinion in Op-Ed articles dealing with affirmative action. The New York Times columnist (2.54) averaged means that were very close to those of guest contributors (2.35), suggesting that the majority of articles were in favor of affirmative action. This is consistent with the overall coverage mean score of 2.5. Clearly, Op-Ed articles on the issue were not very diverse in their affect towards the affirmative action issue. The opinions of guest contributors clearly reinforce those of the columnists. For example, Orlando Patterson (2003) writes: As pragmatic public policy, it is easy to show that the benefits of affirmative action far outweigh its social or individual costs. Table 2 shows a high degree of opinion diversity in the Washington Post regarding affirmative action. While the papers columnists were mostly critical of affirmative action (1.41), their guest contributors seemed more in favor of the issue (2.77). The 1.36 difference in means between columnists and guests suggests a high degree of diversity of opinion with columnists highly critical of the program and guests highly supportive. For example, Richard Cohen writes:
This is the pernicious aftertaste of affirmative action */and its champions ought to ponder it long and hard . . . other proponents of affirmative action ought to wonder whether, in the long run,

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what they are affirming is not a concept of justice but instead a negative stereotype. (2002, p. A23)

Op-Ed Focus on the Impact of Issues Mixed results concerning content diversity was found in the criticism raised by Op-Ed writers of individuals and of organizations. Opinion writers in both newspapers focused the majority of their criticism on individual politicians (19 percent, 14 percent), judges (4 percent, 2.5 percent) and various individuals in general (1.5 percent, 6 percent). It ought to be noted that most criticism was directed to President George W. Bush. A larger scale of content diversity was found in writers criticism of organizations with the majority of it placed on society as a whole (27 percent, 28 percent) and legal bodies/organizations (21 percent, 28 percent) followed by criticism of academic organizations (6 percent, 6 percent) and advocacy groups (6 percent, 4 percent). Summary and Discussion of Content and Source Diversity Strategies The present study aimed to analyze the diversity of sources and issue stands on gay marriages, affirmative action and the death penalty in Op-Ed articles published in The New York Times and the Washington Post . Designed as a journalistic forum for the articulation of competing ideas on salient issues, the Op-Ed section ought to pursue a strategy of diversity in order to fulfill its stated purpose. A content analysis of these two papers produced mixed findings concerning gatekeepers strategy of source and content diversity. A large degree of source diversity was identified in The New York Times as guest columnists accounted for 65 percent of overall Op-Ed articles regarding the three issues. The newspaper provided a seemingly balanced use of sources to examine the issues of gay marriages and the death penalty as its columnists accounted for over 40 percent of the articles. This balance was completely undermined in the discussion of affirmative action where 79 percent of Op-Ed articles were written by guest contributors. It could be argued that by turning the discussion of the issue over to guest writers and away from its own columnists, the newspaper was true to its original proposition of affording a greater opportunity for explanation

The overall means on affirmative action once again suggest that The New York Times (2.5) allowed more liberal Op-Ed contributions than the Washington Post (1.73). The results in Table 2 indicate that the highest level of diversity in opinion was allowed in the Op-Ed discussion of the death penalty. While The New York Times guest contributors seemed neutral in their discussion of the issue (1.92), the papers columnists were clearly opposed to the death penalty (1.0). The overall mean for The New York Times (1.5) clearly indicates wide-scale diversity of opinion on the death penalty issue. As an example, Scott Turow (2003) comments: At the end of the day, perhaps the best argument against capital punishment may be that it is an issue beyond the limited capacity of government to get things right. Similar findings are seen in the Washington Post . Here, guest contributors were highly critical of the death penalty (1.10) while paper columnists were more neutral (1.75). The overall mean score (1.22) suggests a wide-scale diversity of opinions on the death penalty issue. For example, E. J. Dionne Jr. (2002) states: We may not be about to abolish it, but thanks to the courage of Illinois Republican governor, George Ryan, the burden in the death penalty debate is shifting. The results indicate that while the Washington Post was more critical to the liberal programs of affirmative action and gay marriages than The New York Times , it was also more critical of the traditionally conservative issue of the death penalty than the Times. Study results provide further indications of an editorial strategy of content diversity in the discussion of the three issues. The social impact variable of the content analysis reveals the OpEds focus on the overall impact of these three issues in American society. Results indicate that most Op-Ed articles dealt with the social impact of the three issues (38 percent). Yet, discussion of the issue impact proved diverse as moral impact (19 percent), legal impact (17 percent), impact on individuals (15 percent) and political impact (11 percent) ranked closely behind.

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of issues and presentation of new insights and new ideas by writers and thinkers who have no institutional connection (The New York Times , 1970, p. 42). Based on the results of the content analysis, it could be argued that The New York Times followed an editorial strategy of source diversity in its discussion of the three issues. The results of the study also suggest that unlike The New York Times , the Washington Post did not allow for source diversity in its Op-Ed discussion of the three issues. While guest contributors (59 percent) outnumbered columnists (41 percent) on the issue of gay marriages, the discussion of the other two issues was less balanced. The study results show that over 77 percent of Op-Ed articles on affirmative action and 82 percent of articles on the death penalty were written by newspaper columnists. As Washington Post columnists are hired and paid by the newspaper, it cannot be argued that the papers Op-Ed section provides discussion that is free of institutional connection. It could be argued that by limiting the Op-Ed discussion of the controversial issues to its paid columnists, the editors of the Washington Post s Op-Ed section did not allow for sufficient source diversity. Beyond the selection of sources, the current study was also interested in examining diversity in issue stands by Op-Ed writers. Aimed to provide a stage for the articulation of competing issue stands, the Op-Ed section ought to have provided a voice to both liberals and conservatives on the three highly polarized social issues. Like source diversity, the current analysis also provides mixed results concerning the diversity of issue stands in both newspapers. Our measurement of the affective coverage of gay marriages in The New York Times indicates that overall, coverage in the papers Op-Ed articles was highly supportive (positive) of gay marriages. The low differential of 0.4 suggests that there was no real difference in worldview between columnists and guest contributors on the gay marriage issue. A lack of diversity in issue stands in the Times was also found concerning affirmative action. Again, the majority of articles were generally liberal and supportive of affirmative action. The differential of 0.19 suggests that there was

relatively no difference in issue stand between columnists and guests, suggesting that editors selected mostly those articles that reinforced their own worldview on the issue. Contradicting the lack of diversity in issue stand for gay marriages and affirmative action, the Times allowed for greater diversity in issue stand in its discussion of the death penalty. While the newspapers columnists were overwhelmingly opposed to the death penalty, its guest contributors appeared largely neutral. This diversity in issue stands is reflected by the 0.91 differential. The analysis of issue stand diversity in Washington Post Op-Ed articles provides consistent results to those of The New York Times . While the Washington Post did not allow for a diversity of issue stand on gay marriages (0.41 differential) and the death penalty (0.65 differential), it did however allow for a greater diversity of issue stand on affirmative action. While the papers columnists were overwhelmingly opposed to affirmative action, the editors elected to publish guest Op-Ed articles that were strongly supportive of the issue (2.77). The current study raises concerns over diversity of sources and issue stands in the Op-Ed pages of two leading national daily newspapers. The results of the content analysis indicate that Op-Ed gatekeepers in both The New York Times and the Washington Post allow limited diversity in their discussion of three important and highly controversial social issues. The discussion was largely limited by the source of writers in each paper, appearing to mostly to be elites, academics and pundits. With the scarcity of relevant research, the current study aimed to enhance knowledge on Op-Ed journalism which is an important part of democratic discourse. Recognizing that revealing the choices of gatekeepers and the decisionmaking process is limited within a strict analysis of editorial content, an assumption of strategy is made here based upon the voices represented in the observed Op-Ed pages. An in-depth analysis of editors policies, available writers and observations of actual newsroom practices would perhaps better answer editors source and content strategies in selection of the pieces. Future

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research should continue to investigate editorial strategies of source and content diversity with a multi-part approach, including perhaps interviews with The Times and Washington Post s References

Op-Ed editors for an enriched understanding of how gatekeepers allow diversity and how this diversity influences readers perceptions of issues and attribute saliency.

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