On September 21, 1970, The New York Times published the first edition of a page it placed directly opposite its editorials, reserved for outside voices arguing their own views rather than the paper’s. The name that stuck, op-ed, is a description of geography: opposite the editorial page. Most people assume it stands for opinion-editorial, and the mistake is telling, because it reveals a misunderstanding of what an op-ed actually is. An op-ed is not the paper’s opinion. It is your opinion, published in the paper, standing apart from the institution’s own view, which is exactly what makes it valuable and exactly what most people who pitch one get wrong.
What is an op-ed? It is an opinion piece written by an outside contributor and published in a newspaper or outlet, making an argument on an issue of public interest under the author’s own name. The op-ed is where a person who is not on staff gets to make a case to the outlet’s audience, taking a clear position and defending it. For a founder or expert, it is one of the most powerful placements available, because it puts your argument, in your name, in a respected forum, and positions you as a voice worth listening to on a subject that matters. It is also one of the hardest to land, because editors reject the overwhelming majority of what they receive, almost always for the same avoidable reasons.
What an op-ed is
An op-ed is fundamentally an argument, and that word governs everything about it. It is not an explainer, not a summary, not a description of a topic. It takes a position on a contested question and argues for it, with the goal of persuading the reader or at least making them think differently. The best op-eds have a clear thesis you could state in one sentence, a stance that someone could reasonably disagree with, and a case built to defend it. If your piece has no argument, if it merely describes or informs, it is not an op-ed, and an editor will see that immediately. The opinion is the entire point.
The argument has to matter to the public, not just to you. An op-ed runs in a forum meant for issues of shared interest, so the question you take on must be one the outlet’s readers care about, framed in terms of why it matters to them rather than to your business. A founder can absolutely write an op-ed, but it has to be about an issue, a policy, a trend, a shift in the world, on which the founder has an informed and interesting view, not a promotion of the founder’s company dressed as commentary. The subject is public. Your expertise is what earns you the standing to argue about it.
The author’s own voice and name are what distinguish the op-ed from the outlet’s own positions. When a paper runs an op-ed, it is explicitly presenting a view that is not necessarily its own, giving space to an outside argument precisely because it comes from outside. That independence is the value to you: your name, your argument, your standing, hosted by a credible outlet that is vouching for the quality of the debate even when it does not endorse your side. The op-ed lets you borrow a respected forum to make your own case, which is a different and often greater thing than being quoted in someone else’s story.
Where “op-ed” comes from
The concept is older than the Times page that made it famous. The idea of a page dedicated to outside opinion, set opposite the paper’s own editorials, is often traced to Herbert Bayard Swope, an editor at the New York Evening World in the 1920s, who wanted a place for voices other than the paper’s to be heard. Swope’s insight was that a newspaper’s own editorials were only one perspective, and that readers were served by a designated space for other informed views, distinct from and physically opposite the editorial column. The term op-ed, meaning opposite the editorial page, comes from that literal placement.
The modern institution, though, is the Times page launched in 1970, which set the template that spread across journalism. That page formalized the op-ed as a showcase for outside experts, public figures, and citizens to argue positions to a national audience, separate from the paper’s editorial board. It turned the op-ed into a coveted platform, because appearing on it meant your argument had cleared the bar of a demanding editor and now reached the outlet’s full readership under your name. Every opinion section that followed, in print and online, inherited that basic idea: a curated space where the outlet hosts arguments it did not write and does not necessarily endorse.
Knowing this history clarifies what editors are actually curating. They are not looking for content, they are curating a debate, selecting arguments strong enough and interesting enough to earn a place opposite the institution’s own voice. That framing explains the high rejection rate and the specific reasons pieces get rejected. An op-ed editor is asking whether your argument adds something worth putting before their readers as a distinct point of view, and most submissions do not clear that bar because they are not really arguments at all, or the argument is one the editor has seen a hundred times. The 1970 page raised the bar, and the bar is still there.
Op-ed vs byline vs editorial
These three terms get tangled, and separating them clarifies what you are actually pursuing. An editorial is the outlet’s own official opinion, written by its editorial board, representing the institution’s stance. An op-ed is an outside contributor’s opinion, published by the outlet but explicitly not its own view, standing opposite the editorial. So the editorial is the paper speaking, and the op-ed is a guest speaking in the paper’s space. The two live near each other on the page and mean opposite things about whose view is being expressed.
The byline article and the op-ed overlap but are not identical. A byline article is any piece published under your name, which includes op-eds but also covers expertise-driven articles that are not primarily arguments, like a practical guide or an analysis in a trade publication. An op-ed is a specific kind of byline: an argument on a public issue in an opinion section. All op-eds are byline articles, since they carry your name, but not all byline articles are op-eds, because many are informative rather than argumentative and run in sections other than opinion. When you want to argue a position, you want an op-ed. When you want to share expertise more broadly, a byline article is the wider category.
The practical difference shapes where and how you pitch. An op-ed goes to an opinion or op-ed editor and must be a genuine argument on a public issue. A general byline might go to a section editor or through a contributor program and can be explanatory. Confusing them wastes everyone’s time: pitching a how-to guide to an op-ed editor gets rejected for having no argument, and pitching a partisan argument as a neutral byline gets rejected for being an opinion piece in the wrong place. Know which one you are writing, because the outlet, the editor, and the standard are different for each.
What makes an op-ed work
A working op-ed has a sharp, arguable thesis and never wanders from it. The strongest pieces can be summarized in a single sentence that a reasonable person could dispute, and every paragraph serves that central claim. Editors respond to clarity of argument above almost everything else, because a piece that knows exactly what it is arguing is rare and a piece that hedges across several half-positions is common. Decide the one thing you are claiming, make sure it is genuinely contestable rather than obvious, and build the entire piece to defend it. A clear argument is the price of entry.
Timeliness and a fresh angle do the rest of the work. Op-ed editors want arguments connected to why this issue matters now, tied to a current debate, a recent event, or a live question, because opinion sections are part of an ongoing public conversation. They also want an angle they have not seen, since the obvious take on a hot topic has already crossed their desk many times. The op-eds that get accepted usually combine both: a timely subject and a perspective on it that is not the default one, often drawn from the author’s specific expertise or vantage point. Your standing to write it comes from knowing something about the issue that a general commentator would not.
Concrete stakes and real expertise separate the accepted from the rejected. An argument grounded in specifics, real consequences, real examples, real knowledge of how the issue plays out, persuades where abstraction does not, and it signals to the editor that you are qualified to make this case. A founder arguing about a regulatory shift is compelling when they can speak to how it actually affects their industry from direct experience, and unconvincing when they offer generic opinions anyone could have written. The op-ed rewards the author who brings something only they could bring, which is exactly the expertise that made you worth publishing in the first place.
Why most op-ed pitches fail
The dominant reason is that the piece is not an argument. Founders send op-eds that describe a topic, explain their company, or survey an issue without taking a position, and the editor rejects them because an op-ed section runs arguments, not explainers. The submission reads as an article that forgot to have an opinion, and there is no place for it on a page defined by opinion. This is the single most common failure, and it is entirely avoidable: before pitching, confirm you can state your thesis as one arguable sentence, and if you cannot, you do not have an op-ed yet.
The second reason is disguised promotion. An op-ed that is secretly an ad for the author’s company gets rejected on sight, because editors are expert at spotting it and their whole job is to keep the opinion section from becoming free advertising. The moment a piece pivots from arguing a public issue to praising a product or service, it has broken the deal, and no amount of polish saves it. The founders who succeed argue a genuine issue and let their credibility and their company appear only as context for why they are qualified, never as the point. The reader must get value from the argument, not a sales pitch wearing an argument’s clothes.
The third reason is staleness or vagueness, the piece that argues an obvious point, arrives after the debate has moved on, or hedges instead of committing. Editors see the default take on every hot topic constantly, so a predictable argument, however well written, adds nothing to the conversation they are curating. A piece that is timely, specific, and takes a real position that some readers will resist is far more likely to run, because it earns its place opposite the editorial. Most rejections trace back to one of these three: no argument, hidden selling, or nothing new. Fix those and your odds change entirely.
Five rules editors wish you knew
First, lead with an arguable thesis you can state in one sentence, and make sure a reasonable person could disagree with it. Second, argue a public issue, not your company, and let your expertise show only as the reason you are qualified to make the case. Third, be timely and fresh: connect the argument to why it matters now, and bring an angle the editor has not already seen a dozen times. Fourth, ground it in specifics and real stakes, drawing on knowledge only you have, because concreteness persuades and signals your standing. Fifth, respect the length and the section, keeping to the outlet’s word count and pitching the right editor with a genuine argument rather than a disguised ad.
An op-ed is an argument on a public issue, published under your name in a respected forum, standing apart from the outlet’s own view. It is not the paper’s opinion, not an explainer, and not a promotion, and nearly every failed pitch fails by forgetting one of those three. Get the argument sharp, the issue public, the angle fresh, the stakes concrete, and the pitch aimed at the right editor, and you turn one of the hardest placements in PR into one of the most rewarding, a durable statement of what you think that marks you, in your own words, as a voice worth reading.