Australian editor seeks big ideas, big names and good writers
AHRON SHAPIRO
REBECCA Weisser, opinion page editor for The Australian, told a Limmud-Oz audience that the opinion pages in commercial newspapers were part of the business of giving the readers what they want to read.¬†”If I’m doing my job right some people will read [one of the opinion pieces I publish] and say ‘that’s rubbish’, while others will say ‘yes, that is exactly right’,” she said.¬†
In the case of a mainstream daily newspaper, such as The Australian, she said, the views need to fall within mainstream views, which should be apparent to the reader. An example, she said, was an opinion piece written by a Palestinian intellectual that argued for a one-state peace solution for Israel. Weisser rejected the submission on the grounds that it was too radical.
“If an opinion piece would seem more at home in the Green Left Weekly, then it would probably not [sit well in] the opinion section of a mainstream newspaper,” she said.¬†Weisser welcomed submissions from aspiring writers because “good opinion writers are hard to find”. However, she said editors gave priority to “big ideas and big names”, and being well known increases a writer’s chance of being published.¬†
Weisser said she currently receives about 50 submissions a day for two available slots on her pages. She urged the Jewish community members at Limmud-Oz to write letters to newspapers, and assured them they were all read and considered when staff gauged the weight given to issues concerning readers.
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