It is daybreak, and you are still in bed, thinking about things you want to do in the course of the day. You reach for your smartphone and head to social media platforms. As you begin scrolling, you glance at an article, and the headline piques your interest.

You hit the share button, bringing the article closer to your network. Your friends will likely share it even before reading it. But do they and you know exactly what you are sharing? 

In today’s information deluge, the difference between news and opinion is completely blurred. Matters are not helped by the fact that some news outlets care more about clicks than informing people truthfully. They mix facts with opinion and do not bother to label the two properly.

Understanding the difference matters. It is your defence against manipulation by individuals with a certain agenda to push. If you know you are reading an opinion, you will treat it as such. If it is a news story, you will try to look for facts.

The real difference

Opinions are thoughts/views expressed by writers. Some writers may be subject matter experts. For example, a senior economist writing about Uganda’s economy. Others may be expressing their views based on what they have heard or been told. It could even be hearsay.

Opinions have nothing to do with reporting, although some opinion writers interview people. Opinion writers do not tell you what has happened, where it happened, when it happened, why it happened or who did it. They tell you what they think. It may be completely subjective, it may be grounded in fact, it may be false.

By contrast, news is about reporting events taking place—or people making news. In news reporting, interviews are conducted and people interviewed are quoted. Their names, (sometimes) their age and titles are given. A reporter will say whether an interview was conducted on the phone or by email, just so readers understand how they gathered their news.

If there are compelling reasons an interviewed person does not want to be named, the reporter will give those reasons. If a reporter’s request for an interview or a comment gets no response, the reporter normally tells their audience.

Professionally run news outlets always label opinion sections properly. The idea is to enable readers who may confuse opinion with news to understand that the two are different.

Navigation menus on websites of news outlets normally show sections for news and opinions, as these screenshot shows.

News outlets also choose a spot, usually near the headline, to display a label so that the reader does not miss it. To label opinions clearly, some news outlets write the word “opinion” in red so that it stands out.

The news desk, a section of a newsroom responsible for news gathering, works independently of the opinion section. The opinion section writes opinions, including the leading article (called editorial or leader) expressing the news outlet’s viewpoint on a topical matter of public interest. The section commissions opinion articles from the public, and they are labelled “opinion”.

If you care about what you read, look for a label at the beginning or at the end of what you are reading. It may not be a one-word label. It may be a sentence, even a paragraph.

So, next time you scroll past a “news” article that feels oddly persuasive, stop and ask: How is it labelled? Is it informing me—or is it trying to shape what I think? Media literacy starts where blind trust ends.