In our Internet age, everyone can become a columnist. Spend a few moments on any social media, news source or Substack and you will likely come across numerous outlandish, ignorant or misguided yet entertaining opinions shared for all the world to see. These sentiments can range from politically harmful, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene’s post about Jewish space lasers starting the California wildfires in 2018, to mildly fascinating, like “flat earth” theories.
On the one hand, this widening of discourse has removed social barriers to intellectual engagement. In centuries past, a very small proportion of the global population was literate, and, within that, only a select few had the access and demographics required to disseminate their beliefs to a greater audience. With authorship confined to very few, only the elite had a pulpit, reinforcing their power and control over curated information and popular belief.
Now, through social media and the Internet, every individual has their own soapbox, with the potential to reach millions. Publication has been equalized, and this democratization of authorship has led revolutions. Anyone and everyone can dissent, convince or educate. The world of information is at each of our fingertips, both to share and to receive.
But the democratization of information comes with numerous consequences. Online misinformation runs rampant, risking human health and fostering political polarization. When everyone, regardless of their credibility, becomes an author with a wide reaching and receptive audience, truth becomes subjective. The democratization of authorship has put our very democracy at risk.
Student journalism balances this tension by giving young people the chance to develop and share their nascent views. Often financially independent from the universities they serve, student newspapers represent an accessible and unbiased forum for a wide range of developing opinions. Any member of the university community, no matter their specialization or expertise, can share their personal and original opinion for the entire university to read. But unlike an unvetted Substack or Reddit forum, a thorough brainstorming, peer editing and fact-checking process takes place.
As I write my biweekly opinions column, I am given an avenue to disseminate my beliefs regardless of my identity or my accreditation on the topic — that is a privilege. So too is having the right to change these very opinions and share these new viewpoints through The Herald as well. As a student journalist from Dartmouth writes, “the impulse for opinion writing is not rooted in entitlement or intellectual superiority, but in the essential drive to mobilize shared, quiet observation into active discourse.” Through student journalism the liminal exists — the balance between ever-accessible yet vetted authorship is reached.
To those reading, you have a right, and at some points a responsibility, to share your beliefs. Share your opinions with the Brown Daily Herald, and in turn, the Brown community. Apply to be an opinions columnist or share an op-ed today.
Talia Berkwits ’29 can be reached at talia_berkwits@brown.edu. Please send responses to this op-ed to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
