What’s a Comments section anyway?

The holiday season involves inordinate amounts of social engagements. This year, more than most, I found myself answering questions from newly formed-acquaintances regarding what exactly my role is here at The Uniter. Worry not, I won’t bore you with the details.

However, what I did notice about the pattern which discussions about my job description eventually followed was that there seems to be some confusion regarding what a Comments section really is.

News appears to be a straightforward section of any paper; Arts and Culture a hotbed of event listings, reviews and analyses of topics relevant to the popular zeitgeist.

A ‘Comments’ section, on the other hand, seems to suffer from the ambiguity of its naming in various papers. Some have Op-Eds; others, Editorials. The Winnipeg Free Press has a ‘View from the West’, and the Manitoban has a Comment (in the singular) section.

And aren’t ‘comments’ actually those letters that readers send to the paper? No joke, my girlfriend thought that my job title meant that I edited the letters to the editor for the first three months of our relationship, until I proved to her that I actually did do something worth being paid for.

The common follow-up question to what a comments section was invariably: OK, what can someone write about for the comments section? Strictly speaking, this is a hard one to answer.

Conceivably, almost anything can be submitted and accepted by The Uniter for commentary provided it:

1. Makes an argument about something relevant to U of W students and the downtown community, not necessarily something about one or the other but something they might find interesting to read; and 2. Does not violate anything The Uniter prohibits from publishing (consult pg. 2 of any Uniter issue to read up on what we won’t accept – misogyny, racism, stuff like that).

Clearing these two hurdles aren’t terribly hard. But outlining the types of articles that belong in the Comments section does not answer the implicit question residing in the (apparent) interest in what it is. Namely, the implicit question is: why does a paper need such a section?

This is a good thing to consider. Why do people send in their opinions to be published, and perhaps more importantly, why does The Uniter pay someone to edit them?

The argument that has always inspired my interest in reading, writing, and editing commentary pieces is the view that a newspaper is venue through which people - expert or not - can present their viewpoints on a relevant topic.

In a sense, newspapers are avenues for debate, where thoughts can be presented quickly and clearly for consumption and consideration by that paper’s readership. Simply, a comments section exists to encourage people to talk about topics which are important to them and also important for others to think about, agree and disagree with.

Aside from that, commentary articles need not be serious, and in fact some of the best ones I have ever read were of the comedic variety.

Nonetheless, a comments article should always be intriguing to read. If the Comments section of The Uniter is failing to do any of this for you, let us know.

Or, write one yourself.