In 2015, I walked into editorial page editor Fred Hiatt’s office for guidance. New to journalism, I was interested in learning to write editorials, the unsigned position pieces on the major issues and news of the day.
He pulled a thin brown book from the shelf over his computer and handed it to me. “This might be helpful for you to read,” he said. “The Editorial Page,” read the title, with “The Washington Post” in its traditional font at the bottom of the cover. Published in 1977, the book was the third in a series published by Houghton Mifflin, designed for introductory journalism courses. Various Post editors and writers contributed chapters and examples from the paper — adding up to a picture of how they thought editorial and opinion writing should be done. It felt like history in my hands.