In the chance that you, dear reader, live under a rock, the edition of the Obiter Dicta that you are currently reading is the penultimate issue with myself as the head opinion editor. A veritable tragedy! To ease you through what I am sure will be a difficult loss for Osgoode’s student body and the Obiter’s treasured readership, I have penned this article. As is common knowledge, the Obiter Dicta’s opinion section is decidedly Petrarchan in its philosophy; in keeping with this tradition, consider this to be my letter to posterity.
Many have opined on the importance of journalism amid dwindling respect for the profession. As a newspaper man myself, I would suggest differently. In the society of the spectacle where mass media marketing shapes our preferences and lived experience is increasingly replaced by simulacra, the REAL hard-hitting newspaper work is being done in the opinion column. How can opinions be more important than ever if they are shaped by mass marketing? I submit to you that it is precisely because opinions have become so stale that a good one scratches an itch that you didn’t even know was there. To have a good opinion is to have good tastes, and to have good tastes is to live well. Who among us does not want to live well?
But what makes an opinion good? An astute question, thankfully posed to an expert in the subject. I think that the most interesting opinions concern ordinary, uninteresting topics. We tend to overlook the mundane or niche, which makes these topics great material for an opinion piece. Boring or niche topics also require good writing to sustain a reader’s engagement, and more than anything, a good opinion writer should aim to be a good writer generally. To single out a favourite piece of mine, Jane Woodhouse (nom de plume) wrote about the usually mind-numbing topic of sentence structure in “Loss, Verse, and Syntactical Finesse: What Thomas Becket’s Death Means for Us All!” from the November 2024 edition. Instead of receiving a grammar lesson, I was treated to the witty, self-assured, and playful writing that an opinion editor dreams about.
I was initially going to leave this next part out, but like all great newspapermen, I am called to be honest: stop writing about law! Every year, it is the most written-about topic, yet the submissions I receive are nearly indistinguishable from one another as a matter of substance. This is unsurprising to me—law students occupy the same social strata and are educated by the same institutions, so opinions will be naturally homogenous. Frankly, law, politics, and other topics already covered by the mainstream press are wasted in the Obiter anyway. A student newspaper isn’t subject to market pressures, so we don’t need to cover the same range of topics that The New York Times or Toronto Star does. Students can write about anything for the Obiter, so why limit opinions to the dreary business of the law?
Part of the allure of being the opinion editor is that you often get to publish your own writing, but take care to heed my warning, future opinion editors! As I have learned the hard way, and as many an opinion editor will tell you, writing is difficult and is often an exercise in self-doubt. To be a good writer, one must read good writing—who knew?—but reading good writing tends to make one hyper-aware of the shortcomings of one’s own writing. Being opinion editor, then, is not for the weak-spirited: you must be courageous and learn to move beyond your insecurities. Of course, it helps if your girlfriend is smarter than you (an opinion editor must keep modest) so you can trust her assurances as to how well you write—thanks, Jane Woodhouse!For the sake of brevity (any editor’s best friend), I will end this article with a thank-you to the Osgoode student body, the Obiter’s wide readership, and above all, my wonderful colleagues. To the next opinion editor: the job isn’t easy (auditions for the position are conducted via mortal combat), but it is important. After all, can you imagine what society would look like without the opinions of law students?