How Did Opinions Get In Our News?

Even though objectivity is seen as the gold standard for news coverage, OpEds and commentary have been part of the news landscape since the early days of America – and it's not always easy to spot the difference between facts and opinion.

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Breaking the News: Press Pass is a four-episode digital series digging into how early journalism in America laid the foundations for the noteworthy topics, opinions, investigations, and stressors embedded in the news today.

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Executive Producers: Carrie Lozano, Lois Vossen
Director/Host: Danielle Bainbridge
Producer: Hilary Giorgi
Writer: Keahnan Washington
Assistant Researcher: Linnea Valdivia
Senior Creative Producer: Andrea Bloom
Creative Director: Carol Paik
Vice President, Marketing and Communications: Lisa Tawil
Director of Programming (PBS): Gabrielle Ewing
Executive in Charge (PBS): Maribel Lopez
Director of Photography: Erik Ljung
Teleprompter: Philip Aronson
Assistant Camera: Corey Clark
Editor: Dave Yim
Motion Graphics: Matt Dunne
Fact Checker: Yvonne McGreevy
Sound Mixer: Pavel Sinev

Additional Footage:
Library of Congress
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
CNN
Fox News
MSNBC
Paramount | Comedy Central
Huffington Post
The New York Times
Alamy
Washington Post
Getty Images
Shutterstock, Inc.
Rand Corporation
ABC Education
The Guardian Foundation

Independent Lens Funding Provided By:
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Acton Family Giving
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Ford Foundation
Wyncote Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts

Breaking the News: Press Pass is a co-production of Elleinad, Inc and Independent Television Service (ITVS), with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the Park Foundation. This program was produced by Elleinad, Inc and Independent Television Service, which is solely responsible for its content.

[lewa]

As usual PBS has to step up where mainstream news has screwed up in media literacy training

[alexwixom]

We need more social education like this everywhere.

[brendalong]

I quit the news for a while because I wasn't finding much news just opinions. Now I spend a lot of time on fact checking websites as they seem to be both current and factual in what they are saying.

[ChristopherCurtis]

I remember when I was in grade school (3rd, IIRC) there was an entire lesson on discerning factual statements from opinions, and I thought it was the dumbest thing I ever had to sit through. There were a few examples that could be a bit tricky for 8-year-olds but it seems this kind of teaching is needed today more than ever.

[auntielaura]

I believe strongly that critical thinking skills are a necessity, and should be taught at all levels of school. With so much data bombarding us daily, most of it contradictory, we all need to understand how to evaluate the source material and how to weigh differing opinions. Thanks for this video.

[PokhrajRoy.]

The hilarious thing is how people see anything and everything as an ‘opinion’ especially when it comes to non-negotiables. There isn’t a middle ground for every topic under the sun.

[RobynHoodeofSherwood]

I remember the daily newspaper Mom and Dad got had a page of opinion and they always had 2 articles written by people from each side. I always enjoyed reading it.

[rebeccaboudreau]

I remember it starting when cable tv became a thing. Fox News started the first news like opinion segments. They became so popular that they took over that channel and then it spilled over into everywhere else

[johnshafer]

When TV shows said "Who needs history? It's all in the past.". Now we people who don't understand fact from opinion.

[QuestioningYourSanity]

These days, the real issue is ads that look and feel like news or opinion articles.

[smokenojoke]

PBS is one of the few news outlets that just gives you the facts and nothing more.

[makeitmakesense]

Im happy to see this woman still on pbs. Ive enjoyed the pieces shes done in the past

[somersetcace]

This was really well done. The problem though, is not opinions in the news, it's when opinions `become` the news. Most of that is our own fault. People like to be told what they want to hear. This is why the news barely even veils their bias anymore, because we've become so polarized that if they were truly objective, no one would pay attention. Inevitably they would report on something in a way the consumer doesn't like. So, they pick their market shares and tell them what they want to hear.

[lynnerholmes]

This series is really great, but my golly the music is loud. It's difficult to hear the speaker. Thank you for adding the closed captioning!

[Ashley-xulk]

I was just complaining about this the other day. I am so tired of every news segment including interviews, i.e. opinions. There are times when interviews are necessary in the news, such as to better understand what is going on or to stir up intellectual discussions. But too many times it seems that there are interviews that don't serve a purpose other than to create speculation. I just want the news to be the news, tell me what's happening in the world, not a 10 minute segment of "It could", "They should've done", "They might", etc.

[caradelsol]

So glad you're back! I missed your content, Danielle!

[martycheek]

As a publisher of two small community newspapers in the southern region of Silicon Valley, we publish opinion pieces as guest columns, an editorial and local news stories in each issue. I'm amazed how many people have a hard time understanding the differences between opinion and news. A big part of the problem is that schools have taken real journalism out as an option for students to learn mass media communication skills. A lot of students are not interested in the free press. What they get is social media nonsense and they digest that nonsense as news. And so society is growing more divided because social media systems feed them only the nonsense they want, so they lack a variety of opinions in their information "diet" (a necessity for a democracy to function in a healthy manner).

[Yotrek]

This would explain why the family that perfected yellow journalism owns Reddit.

[j.n.sloane]

There is also the advent of the news aggregators. Ground News labels articles as to their accuracy, leanings (right, left, center), funding source and independent vs. corporate vs. governmental. This is very helpful for understanding the world.

[iamqotl]

A great visual essay. Like highlighting “this is an advertisement”, all op-eds should be similarly labelled. Objectivity is now a rare commodity in the news.