Q: What is good editorial? Discuss how editorial page is different from other pages in the newspaper?

The editorial page is the most important page in the newspaper. It reveals the policy of the newspapers.
According to a defination, “Editorial is that journalistic essay which comments on the news”. The editorial page express the views of the owners (proprietors), publishers or the editors of newspapers. Nowadays, editorial page is not (necessarily) written by the editor, but it consists of the variety of other writings. It includes the following items:

· The editorial notes
· Political, social, economic and religious columns
· personal opinion
· Humorous columns
· Letter to the editors
· Cartoons
· The stanzas of the poets
· Sayings of Jinaah and Iqbal
· Current issues
· Verses from Holy Quran

The columns of the permanent columnists find proper place on the editorial page.

A good editorial:

We know that the editoral is soul and heart of a newspaper. The quality of a newspaper can be estimated after reading its editorials. A good editorial should possess the following characteristics:

* It must be written in a narrative and a descriptive style.
* It possesses the logical thoughts.
* Like all other types of mass communication, the main objectives of an editorial is to inform, influence, entertain and sometimes educate.
* Its content must comprise on the political, social, economic, religious, cultural and scientific issues.
* The choice of editorials should be sensible, balanced and prolific.
* It must be written in an impressive manner. The use of words and phrases must be careful.
* It must be reasonable, persuasive and tolerant.
* An editorial should give correct information, statistics and events.
* In an editorial the writer should discuss the problems, not the personalities.
* An editorial must convince the readers, not emotionalise them.
* The problems of religion or other sensitive issues should not be discussed in the editorials.
* It must coincide with the policy of the newspaper.
* It should attract the readers.

A continuous good editorial page can increase the circulation of a newspaper. It must possess the qualities of a good writing.

A good editorial can be written only by a learned person. The editorial writer should keep in view the desires and wants of the masses. He should have grip in the topic he is discussing. He, also, must know how his readers live, think and act. In other words, an editorial writer should know the basic principles of psychology, and an editorial should be a mouthpiece of sociological, psychological and rational analysis.

The editorial writer should have also extensive knowledge of history, economics, politics, religion, cultural values and geography. If an editorial is written in colloquial language it would be read by general public easily. It is also necessary for an editorial writer to be well conversant with the laws and ethics of journalism.

Editorial page- different from other pages:

The editorial page is entirely different from the other content of the newspaper. In a newspaper the first and the last page is reserved for news both national and international. The layout of these pages is well dressed with healines, leads and news stories, photographs, cartoons and maps etc. The main differences between an editorial page and other pages of a newspaper are presented following:

¨ The editorial page provides the views, opinion and the background knowledge on any social, historical and current issue. While other pages simply and objectively inform the masses what is happening around them.
¨ The editorial page consisits of the news editorials, policy editorials, social or civic editorials and special editorials on politics and religion.
¨ The sources of an editorial are libraries, reference books, maxims and proverbs, facts and figures, correspondence and cutting clippings.
¨ In a newspaper, there is no advertisement on the editorial page. But other pages bear advertisements.
¨ On the editorial page, there are stanzas of the poems, couplets, sayings and verses from the Holy Quran and Hadith.

To conclude, we can say an editorial page is entirely different from the other pages of a newspaper.