What Is the Difference Between an Editorial & a Newspaper Article?

It may be hard to separate the objective reporting of news articles from editorials and other opinions in a newspaper. Typically, editorials appear in a specially labeled section to make it easier for readers to tell news articles from opinion pieces. Objective writing will appear in the strictly news sections, and should not reflect the writer's personal view on the topic.

Reporting the News

News reporters gather factual information, explains a guide by "The Boston Globe" newspaper. The product of their research is a news article, which intends to inform readers. Today, journalistic standards call for reporters to be as objective as possible, although this was not always the case, according to Kathryn Walbert for the University of North Carolina School of Education’s Learn NC.

Different papers often express a certain viewpoint, but this is usually done by choosing which stories to cover and which information to present; a news article typically does not come right out and express opinion. You find news articles throughout a newspaper, most obviously on the front page. This can also take place on broadcast news shows, or with digital news companies.

Determining the trustworthiness of a source or the publication they work for is also a vital step in identifying objective news. Ideally, writers who report the news will be fair and transparent, and will leave themselves out of the story.

Commenting on the Issues

An editorial, on the other hand, may be based in fact, but its main purpose is not to inform, but to express opinion. Most newspapers, including "The Boston Globe" and "The New York Times," group these opinion pieces in a special section, an ​Editorial Page​ or an ​Op-Ed page​, "opposite the editorial."

Other types of opinion pieces, such as sports columns or movie reviews, may appear in different sections, but they usually are labeled in some way to show that they are not objective news. Editorials are a special category of opinion pieces that express the viewpoint of an editor or, at larger papers, an editorial board; as such, they represent the opinion of the paper as a whole, according to guides by "The Boston Globe" and "The New York Times." Because these editorials do not represent just one individual’s opinion, they usually don’t list an author’s name.

Then there are editorials that ​can​ exclusively feature one person's opinion. The writer with the byline is almost always the person whose views are being expressed in these kind's of articles.