Journalism provides information and understanding. That’s it’s whole thing. The Information bit tends to be clear - it’s verifiable, you can see if it’s raining as in your example. Understanding is harder - it’s intangible, you infer it or deduce it. Therefore it’s non-objective, unprovable, so an opinion.
And lots of things fall into the second category - An article on what Putin’s actual objectives are in Ukraine. Why his world view became that way. What it feels like to be a Uyghur in China. What it’s like in the inside of the Trump administration. This kind of thing is valuable and it’s only communicated through opinion pieces.
I think people react strongly to it because it is something that can be weaponised and has been. Mixed in or presented as informational news. Or might just be advocating some dogshit idea or rotten agenda. There’s too many examples to mention…
Did I say that?
Journalism provides information and understanding. That’s it’s whole thing. The Information bit tends to be clear - it’s verifiable, you can see if it’s raining as in your example. Understanding is harder - it’s intangible, you infer it or deduce it. Therefore it’s non-objective, unprovable, so an opinion.
And lots of things fall into the second category - An article on what Putin’s actual objectives are in Ukraine. Why his world view became that way. What it feels like to be a Uyghur in China. What it’s like in the inside of the Trump administration. This kind of thing is valuable and it’s only communicated through opinion pieces.
I think people react strongly to it because it is something that can be weaponised and has been. Mixed in or presented as informational news. Or might just be advocating some dogshit idea or rotten agenda. There’s too many examples to mention…