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It’s hardly a secret that there’s no love lost between The Spectator and The Flip Side. As I remember it, the students who founded The Flip Side in the fall of 2003 did so in part over indignation at what they saw as the failings of the mainstream media, including The Spectator.

Meanwhile, I’ve heard comments from some Spectator staff, students and professors that they can’t take The Flip Side seriously because it doesn’t follow the conventions of a newspaper.

As a Spectator staffer, let me be the first to admit The Spectator, like much of the mainstream media, often lacks depth. But as a student paper at a public university, the staff enjoys a freedom that simply wouldn’t be possible for a news outlet owned by a media conglomerate. Where The Spectator lacks, it’s because of our own inexperience and thoughtlessness, not our economic conditions.

I guess it’s true that The Flip Side fails miserably as a newspaper. It follows few of the customs of mainstream journalism. Most of the content is opinion writing, there’s little to no hard reporting and they don’t even use Associated Press style, for goodness’ sake. And let’s not start with design.

The thing is, The Flip Side is not a newspaper. It belongs to the genre of opinion journalism, something that’s dismissed by more than a few of my colleagues, overlooked by our communication and journalism department and newly threatened by the rise of so-called “debate” shows on TV.

In journalism, there are two kinds of writing. The first is hard news, a noble pursuit venerated under the assumption that there is such a thing as neutrality. The second – and second-class – kind of writing is found on the editorial and opinion pages.

Since this genre gets so little respect, no real distinction is made between well-reasoned arguments and inflamed, name-calling rants. After all, it’s “just your opinion,” so anything goes.

I will abstain from coming down on my peers too harshly for this, because the institutions we are learning from have done little to advance respectable opinion journalism.

In my time as a print journalism major, it never has merited more than a passing mention in any of my classes. The department used to offer a senior-level elective course in opinion writing, but it hasn’t been taught since the spring of 2001. This year, the course was eliminated from the university catalogue altogether.

With only three faculty members teaching print journalism courses, resources are scarce. Choices must be made, and this course was not chosen.

The mainstream media only make the situation worse. The filth that has taken over cable TV is not opinion journalism. It’s ranting, and the “winner” of its debates is the person who shouts the most dominantly. The goal of those shows is conflict, not social critique. Their networks laugh all the way to the bank.

Outlets for quality opinion journalism exist, but they’re far from mainstream. How many of us regularly read a magazine focused on social critique?

Now, how many watch “Crossfire”?

All that yelling might make for good ratings, but it makes dismal social commentary.

Which is why we need to foster respect for thoughtful analysis now more than ever. It’s more than “just your opinion;” it’s what allows us to keep our government, our media and other social powers in check.

The Flip Side has been struggling to survive financially. The Student Senate Finance Commission denied its request for funding Nov. 4 partly because of concern that its aim is to promote a liberal agenda.

This is a valid concern. But The Flip Side has not grown into a propaganda sheet for a particular political organization. If that were the case, its funding would indeed be suspect, and in order to remain viewpoint-neutral, the university would have to start funding any organization that promoted a cause.

But if its content has largely reflected a liberal point of view, it is because of the persuasions of those who have written, not because of a policy to accept only pieces editors agree with.

The Flip Side’s special election edition featured writing in support of Democratic, Republican, Libertarian and independent candidates. As a member of The Flip Side’s listserv, I have witnessed repeated attempts to recruit diverse points of view (including from outside its own staff).

The Flip Side’s agenda, as best I can tell, is one of open discourse and participatory democracy. These goals deserve to be supported by the university, especially because they will get no special consideration in today’s profit-driven media. The quality of its arguments varies – but none of us is perfect.

It will help its case for funding by defining itself as a publication for opinion journalism and formally stating its policy of accepting writing from diverse points of view.

In addition, the communication and journalism department should do more to teach its students to think critically within the courses it does offer. Even journalists who report “just the facts” need to ask the big questions as well as the little ones. As reporters, we are always making choices – about what to cover, what not to cover and whom to turn to for answers.

If we don’t make room for thoughtful discussion and well-reasoned argument in the university, I fear it may lose its place altogether.