Editorial Writing: Does Anyone Care?

The Pulitzer committee did not confer an award this year for editorial writing.  It made me think: does anybody read editorials anymore?

I used to write editorials for a living. Indeed, my former Dallas Morning News colleagues won last year’s Pulitzer for editorial writing. I hadn’t realized until reading the 2012 Pulitzer news that after I left writing newspaper editorials for a living, I quit reading newspaper editorials. I read op-eds and columns, because they have a particular voice. The institutional voice of the editorial? Not so much. Is it that editorials aren’t as well written today as they used to be? Or is it more the case that the voice of the institution as an opinion leader doesn’t matter as much anymore. I think the latter. I still read good editorials on occasion, but now that editorial writing is no longer my occupation, I never feel the need to check and see what this or that newspaper has to say about an issue. How about you? Why or why not?

UPDATE: The daily paper I read is The New York Times, and I never, ever read their editorials, because based on experience, I know exactly what they’re going to say about everything. They never, ever surprise. It’s wasted space on the most valuable newspaper real estate in the country.