These are the questions an editorial writer asks himself

By Keith M. Woods

The Seven Questions

1. To whom would this be written? Are we writing for power elites? Average readers? Or are we just writing to ourselves?

2. What's our attitude? Are we angry? Pleased? Perplexed? Befuddled? What tone will we project?

3. What, exactly, are we trying to accomplish? An official response? A public change of attitude? An explanation? Entertainment?

4. What are we contributing to the debate? What's the added value here? Just our opinion? New facts? New arguments, contexts, or dimensions to consider? The best opinion is reported opinion. The power of your voice comes not from your job description, but from the strength of your facts & the reasoning that drives your arguments. When you feel queasy about stating an opinion, it's often because one of these elements has come up short.

5. Do we have something new to say about this? Are we advancing the conversation or just dishing up warmed-over wisdom from the editorial board? Yes, we have a topic & an opinion. But do we have a solution in mind?

6. Have we fiercely attacked our own premise? Does our position survive the scrutiny? What would be our opponents' most compelling arguments against our position? Are we right or just rote?

7. Are we stirring up a "three-bowler?" That borrowed phrase refers to the possibility a reader will be so bored by the unrelenting earnestness of a newspaper article as he sits at breakfast that his face flops into his cereal bowl once, twice or, if the article is especially boring, three times.

It's one thing to have an opinion. It's something altogether different to sell it. To write persuasively in an editorial, McCormick says, is to offer readers an organized debate that's rich w/context & considers the likelihood that the reader needs to be brought up to speed on the issue.

The bottom line, he says, is this: "Are we, by our imagination, our open-mindedness & our conviction, adding something to the public discussion? Will our mastery of those attributes today draw readers back to our editorial page tomorrow? Or, by our predictability, our self-satisfaction & our arrogance, are we short-changing our best arguments & driving our readers away?"

Their names are Deamonte Love, Jabbar Gibson & Sheriff Warren C. Evans.

Deamonte Love is probably the most familiar. He is the 6-year-old who led a troupe of tiny refugees to safety after rescuers separated them from their parents. Deamonte was the oldest of the group, which included his 5-month-old brother, 3 toddlers in the 2-year-old range, a 3-year-old & her 14-month-old brother.

All held hands as Deamonte led the group along Causeway Boulevard in New Orleans, where he identified himself & his associates to authorities. In a sea of helpless victims, while adults dithered or complained, Deamonte found the guts & fortitude to take care of himself, his family & friends.

Another victim of the storm, Gibson is perhaps better known as the 20-year-old who commandeered a school bus & drove 70 homeless passengers from New Orleans to the Houston Astrodome, beating the other 25,000 or so refugees awaiting evacuation from the Superdome by officials still trying to figure out who was in charge.

When no one is in charge, as seems to have been the case for too long in New Orleans, a leader eschews the clipboard & takes action. While city officials couldn't find their way to use hundreds of available school buses to evacuate some 100,000 residents, Gibson "stole" a bus & rescued 70 strangers.

Then there's Warren C. Evans, the sheriff of Wayne County, Mich., which includes Detroit, who ignored his governor's pleas to wait for "formal requests" & put his leadership instincts to better use. While other law enforcement volunteers were held up for days by paperwork, Evans led a convoy of 6 tractor-trailers, 3 rental trucks & 33 deputies to Louisiana.

Explaining his pre-emptive action to the New York Times, Evans said: "I could look at CNN & see people dying & I couldn't in good conscience wait for a coordinated response."

Meanwhile, other more obedient citizens & potential rescuers, as well as evacuation vehicles, medical & food supplies, even a floating hospital, were stalled or unused as officials & politicians bickered over territory & protocol & - in an indictment that speaks for itself - gender sensitivity concerns.

I wish I were kidding. Hundreds of firefighters who volunteered to help with Katrina relief were held up for days in Atlanta taking classes on sexual harassment & community relations, all courtesy of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency in charge of coordinating federal relief.

At the White House, concerns about overriding the female governor of Louisiana reportedly contributed to the decision not to take control of a national disaster that clearly had overwhelmed state and local officials.

Dozens of readers have reminded me the past several days about the proper order of things, that local & state officials are the first responders to a catastrophe & the federal government responds only as local officials make formal requests for help.

Noted. But sometimes the rules get in the way of what is right.

Yes, we are a nation of laws. But we are also a nation of pioneers endowed with common sense & catastrophes call for the talents & spirit of that heritage. Such as that we witnessed in Sheriff Evans. And in a 20-year-old who stole a bus. And finally, in a little kid named Deamonte whose can-do spirit exposed the sometimes impotent inhumanity of the United Bureaucracy of America.

Orlando Sentinel