Op-Ed

The term op-ed is short for "opposite the editorial page," referring to the layout convention in 20th-century broadsheet newspapers where outside-contributor opinion pieces were printed on the page facing the paper's own editorials. The modern op-ed format is generally credited to The New York Times, which launched its dedicated op-ed page on 21 September 1970 under editor John B. Oakes, though earlier precursors existed at the New York World and other papers.

Op-eds are distinct from:

• Editorials, which represent the institutional voice of the publication and are usually unsigned.
• Columns, which are recurring pieces by staff or contracted writers.
• Letters to the editor, which are shorter reader responses.

A typical op-ed runs 600–1,200 words, advances a single argument, and is signed by an author whose credentials or stake in the issue are disclosed in a brief tagline. Major outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde, and Foreign Affairs publish op-eds from heads of state, ministers, scholars, activists, and private citizens.

For IR researchers and MUN delegates, op-eds matter for several reasons. They are a deliberate instrument of public diplomacy: governments routinely place op-eds in foreign newspapers to shape host-country opinion. They serve as signaling devices in policy debates, often previewing or justifying official positions. And they form a useful primary-source corpus for tracking elite discourse over time.

In April 2017, The New York Times rebranded its op-ed section's print page as part of broader restructuring, and in 2021 it retired the label "Op-Ed" in favor of "Guest Essay," citing the digital era's irrelevance of physical page geography. Other publications have largely kept the older term. When citing an op-ed in research, treat it as an opinion source attributable to its named author, not as the publication's own position.