Pretty simple. Just look at the BUT/AND ratio for the four main types of editorials in the NY Times. Committees present weak arguments, professionals kick ass, the others are in between.
Two obvious patterns: The committee effort (Editorial Board) presents the weakest arguments. The professional columnists present the strongest arguments. Don’t believe it? Do the analysis yourself, it’s dead simple.
Four categories of editorials
You’ll find four main types of editorials in the New York Times. Three of them are labeled “Opinion” pieces. They are written by: 1) members of the NY Times Editorial Board, 2) Guest individuals, and 3) Professional columnists of the NY Times.
The fourth type of editorial is actually called an “editorial.” It is written by the dozen or so members of the NY Times Editorial Board. This means it is more of a committee effort.
In my new book, Lincoln But Trump, I present two metrics for QUANTITATIVELY assessing the narrative strength of any document. The first is the AND Frequency (AF) which is just the abundance of the word AND in a text.
The second is the Narrative Index (NI) which is this:
NARRATIVE INDEX (NI) = (BUTs/ANDs) x 100
Working with my long-time co-instructor Matthew David, we analyzed 25 each for the four categories, with the selections starting in February this year and working backwards. The NY Times columnists included all the superstars (Maureen Dowd, Nicholas Kristof, Thomas Friedman, etc.). We had one basic rule for “sample size” which is the piece needed to be over 1,000 words (scores get a little weird when you get below that).
What the data show
Of course it’s not the entire story for an editorial. It’s only a quantitative tool. A good analysis also needs the qualitative assessment (i.e. was there a clear theme, a good overall structure, proper framing, consistent advancement of the narrative, and lots more traits that we present in our Narrative Training program).
But the NI at least gives you a simple first “diagnosis” of whether a document argues powerfully or not.
For now, there are no other common metrics for assessing narrative strength. Once you start working with the NI and AF you find yourself looking at every new document and having it be the first thing you think of, “I wonder how it scores with the two metrics.”
They reveal a lot and with almost no effort at all. Go ahead, try it on your own documents. I dare you.