It's an editorial. It reflects the views of the editorial staff of the publication in question. Sometimes one editor is chosen to write it, sometimes it is more of a group effort (such as when a paper endorses a presidential candidate)
Yours is an interesting question. This is a common feature in printed newspapers and has been for decades. It might be good for online versions of newspapers to explain things like this, because today many online readers are not exposed that much to the print editions.
It feels very weird, in the extremely personal medium of the web, to attribute a voice to a newspaper; Steve Waldman (see?) wrote about something related this morning: http://www.interfluidity.com/posts/1228128707.shtml .
It's an editorial. It reflects the views of the editorial staff of the publication in question. Sometimes one editor is chosen to write it, sometimes it is more of a group effort (such as when a paper endorses a presidential candidate)
Yours is an interesting question. This is a common feature in printed newspapers and has been for decades. It might be good for online versions of newspapers to explain things like this, because today many online readers are not exposed that much to the print editions.