February 8, 2006 — At the Shorenstein Center’s brown-bag lunch, Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor for the Washington Post, considered the implications of a highly partisan political culture and an increasingly fractured media environment on opinion journalism.
As editor of the Post‘s editorial, op-ed and letters section, he said he is intent on presenting a wide range of opinions and maintaining an editorial position unaffected by partisan interests.
This presents a tricky challenge in today’s technological climate: nowadays readers can easily turn to venues — talk shows, blogs, and more — that tell them only what they want to hear.
But there is good news, too. As Hiatt sees it, the Post‘s competitive advantage is in the quality of its product, especially in its news and foreign news sections. He added, too, that the glut of unfiltered opinions on the web can increase the value of an editorial page.
