[jfengel]

There used to be a time when editorials were the insights of people who had spent decades in the news business. They could reasonably be thought to know more than the average person on the subject. A newspaper should offer facts, but it offers only the new facts, not the history needed to judge the facts. They just can't; there's too much. That's for textbooks.

Editorials were supposed to provide a leg up on that. They were journalists working in the field, who would often know even more information than appeared in textbooks. They would have spoken to all of the major players and knew not just what they'd said and done, but what their personalities were like.

It wasn't supposed to be a substitute for your own education and judgment. But it could provide a counterbalance to it. It puts perspective on what your own education and experience amount to. It provides a convenient checkpoint against Dunning-Krugerism.

Unfortunately, editorials no longer serve that function. Opinions aren't even a dime a dozen; they're a dollar per thousand impressions. Young journalists don't get the experience to become old journalists and then editors.

Which kinda leaves us stuck. Academic journals are great if you can read them, but they assume even more background than newspapers. They're the cutting edge of a field, written for others at the cutting edge of the field, and simply don't address anybody who isn't at least working towards a PhD.