Op-ed

"It occurred to me that nothing is more interesting than opinion when opinion is interesting, so I devised a method of cleaning off the page opposite the editorial, which became the most important in America...

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Encyclopedia

An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page (though often believed to be abbreviated from opinion-editorial), is a newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a publication containing news, information and advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. General-interest newspapers often feature articles on Politics, crime, business, art/entertainment, society and sports....
 article that expresses the opinions of a named writer

Writer

A writer is anyone who creates a written work, although the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms....
 who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board

Editorial board

The editorial board is a group of people, usually at a print publication, who dictate the tone and direction the publication's editorials will take....
. These are different from editorial

Editorial

Editorial guidelinesEditorials are generally printed either on their own page of a newspaper or in a clearly marked-off column, and are always labeled as editorials ....
s, which are usually unsigned and written by editorial board members. Op-eds are so named because they are generally printed on the page opposite the editorial.

Although standard editorial pages have been printed by newspapers for many centuries, the first modern op-ed page was created in 1921 by Herbert Bayard Swope

Herbert Bayard Swope

Herbert Bayard Swope was a United States of America editor and journalist. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he was the younger brother of businessman Gerard Swope....
 of The New York Evening World. When he took over as editor in 1920, he realized that the page opposite the editorials was "a catchall for book reviews, society boilerplate, and obituaries." He is quoted as writing:

"It occurred to me that nothing is more interesting than opinion when opinion is interesting, so I devised a method of cleaning off the page opposite the editorial, which became the most important in America... and thereon I decided to print opinions, ignoring facts."

External links

• - profiles of columnists and commentators in the UK press along with indexing of the subjects they write about.