英文報紙上的Op-ed版是怎么來的？

經常看英文報紙的同學可能會注意到，在報紙的Editorial（社論）版對面一般都是一個叫做Op-ed的版面，上面刊登的都是一些評論性的文章，而寫這些文章的人似乎也不是該報社的員工。那么這個Op-ed具體指什么呢？今天我們就來簡單介紹一下。

An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page, is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board. These are different from editorials (which are usually unsigned and written by editorial board members) and letters to the editor (which are submitted by readers of the journal or newspaper).

Op-ed其實是opposite the editorial page（社論版對面）的縮寫，指發表在報紙上、由非本報評論部員工撰寫的署名評論文章，與社論（由本報評論部員工撰寫的非署名評論文章）和讀者來信（期刊或報紙讀者提交的文章）均有不同。

Although standard editorial pages have been printed by newspapers for many centuries, the direct ancestor to the modern op-ed page was created in 1921 by Herbert Bayard Swope of The New York Evening World. When he took over as editor in 1920, he realized that the page opposite the editorials was "a catchall for book reviews, society boilerplate, and obituaries". He is quoted as writing: “It occurred to me that nothing is more interesting than opinion when opinion is interesting, so I devised a method of cleaning off the page opposite the editorial, which became the most important in America ... and thereon I decided to print opinions, ignoring facts.”

雖說報紙上開設正規的社論版已經有幾百年的歷史了，不過現代報紙評論版的鼻祖卻在1921年才出現，是由《紐約世界晚報》的赫伯特?貝亞德?斯沃普開創的。他在1920年接任該報主編時，發現社論版對面的版面“混雜著書評、各類通用文本和訃告”。他曾經寫道：“我意識到，如果評論有意思，那一定會是最吸引人的部分，于是，我想出了一個清理社論版對面那個版面的辦法，此舉是當時美國最重要的變革…自那以后，我就決定在那個版發評論，不發事實了。”

But Swope included only opinions by employees of his newspaper, and the first "modern" op-ed page—that is, one that called on contributors outside the newspaper—had to wait until its launch in 1970, under the direction of The New York Times editor John B. Oakes.

不過，當時斯沃普只在評論版刊發自己報社員工寫的評論，第一個“現代”意義的評論版，也就是由報社以外的人士供稿的評論版，直到1970年才出現，是由時任《紐約時報》主編約翰 B. 歐克斯開創的。

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（中國日報網英語點津 Helen）

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