The Column Nobody Finished

Cedar Valley News — February 24, 2026
The Column Nobody Finished
By: George Khan
From the fictional town of Cedar Valley, where characters from Quiet Echo continue to respond to real-world events.

Gannett owns more than 250 daily newspapers in America. In 2022, a committee of its own editors sat in a room and admitted something most readers already knew. Opinion columns are the least-read content in their papers. And they are the most-cited reason people cancel subscriptions.

Read those two sentences again. The writing meant to connect a newspaper to its community was driving the community away.

The editors wrote it down in a memo: “Readers don’t want us to tell them how to think. They don’t believe we have the expertise to tell anyone what to think on most issues. They perceive us as having a biased agenda.”

The Des Moines Register cut its opinion pages to two days a week. Other Gannett papers dropped syndicated columns, eliminated editorial cartoons, and stopped endorsing candidates in federal races. An entire chain of American newspapers looked at the opinion page and decided it was broken beyond repair.

I fix broken things for a living. When a machine stops working, I do not throw it away. I open it up and find out why.

The opinion page did not break because people stopped caring about opinions. People care more than ever. Social media proved it. Everybody has something to say. The opinion page broke because the people writing it forgot to ask three questions before they started.

Why am I writing this? For whom? To what end?

I learned those questions from a book called The Power of Authors by Evan Swensen and Lois Swensen. The book is not about opinion columns. It is about writing with purpose — any writing, for any audience, in any form. But the principle fits an opinion page the way a carburetor fits an engine. Without it, nothing runs.

Here is what happens when a columnist skips those three questions. The piece opens with outrage. It assumes the reader already agrees. It builds no argument because it believes the conclusion is obvious. It acknowledges no other side because the other side is the enemy. It offers no solution because the point was never to solve anything. The point was to perform.

The reader finishes — if the reader finishes — feeling either validated or insulted. Neither one changed. Nobody moved. The writer spent eight hundred words and left the world exactly where it was.

Now watch what changes when the writer stops and answers those three questions first.

Why am I writing this? Not because I am angry. Because a nine-year-old is scrolling Instagram at midnight, and nobody at the company asked why. Because a young man nobody had heard of showed up at a gate with a shotgun and is now dead on the ground. The why has to be specific. One sentence. If you cannot say it in one sentence, you are not ready.

For whom? Not for everyone. For the mother checking her daughter’s phone at the kitchen table. For the neighbor who watches the headlines and feels something is wrong but cannot name it. Name one reader. Write to the person, not the crowd.

To what end? Not agreement. If the answer is “agree with me,” start over. The end is a question the reader carries into tomorrow. A conversation the reader starts instead of avoiding.

Answer those three questions honestly, and the piece changes shape before the first sentence is written. Outrage becomes evidence. Assumptions become arguments. The enemy becomes a fellow citizen who sees it differently and deserves to know why. The performance becomes a conversation.

The Des Moines Register’s opinion editor said his readers were tired of content aimed at “stoking divisions rather than offering solutions.” He is right. But the solution is not fewer opinion pages. The solution is better purpose behind the ones we publish.

Teresa said it yesterday. The hand holding the tool decides what gets built. A column is a tool. With purpose, it builds understanding. Without purpose, it just makes noise.

Lars Olson told me he can tell in thirty seconds whether a customer came in to fix something or to complain. The ones who came to fix walk straight to the aisle. The ones who came to complain stand at the counter and talk. Both are welcome. Only one leaves with the problem solved.

A good column walks straight to the aisle.

I am not a writer by trade. I fix engines. But I read the opinion page every morning with my coffee, and I can tell you the moment a columnist loses me. It is not when I disagree. I can read someone I disagree with all day if the argument is honest. I lose interest when the writer has no purpose beyond being right. When the column could have been written by anyone, about anything, on any day.

Cedar Valley’s opinion page works differently. Not because we are smarter. Because we ask three questions before we write. Every time. No exceptions.

Why am I writing this? For whom? To what end?

Try it. The next email you send. The next post you write. The next letter to the editor you draft at the kitchen table. Three questions. If you cannot answer all three in one sentence each, you are not ready to write.

And if you can, you will write something worth finishing.

This editorial is part of the fictional Cedar Valley News series. While the people and town are fictional, the national events they reflect on are real.

Want to know the full story behind Cedar Valley? Teresa, Caleb, Dan, and the community you’ve come to know in these editorials first came together in Quiet Echo. Discover how a small town found its way from fear to fellowship—one quiet act of courage at a time. Available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3ME4nSs

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