We've published guest articles whose central argument our own editorial judgment disagreed with, on more than one occasion, because the piece made the strongest, most honestly argued version of a position we thought our readers should genuinely engage with, whether or not we found it ultimately persuasive.
What made these pieces worth running despite disagreement
Each made specific, checkable claims rather than relying on assertion, engaged seriously with the strongest counterarguments rather than a weaker version easy to dismiss, and reached its conclusion through a reasoning process a skeptical reader could actually follow and evaluate - the standard we apply to guest opinion generally, independent of whether we agree with where it lands.
Why we think this is worth doing, even at some reputational risk
Publishing this piece meant some readers likely assumed it reflected our own editorial view, an assumption we can't fully control regardless of how clearly we label opinion content as belonging to its author. We accepted that risk because we think readers are better served encountering a genuinely strong version of an argument we disagree with than only encountering arguments that already match our own editorial instincts.
What we specifically checked before publishing
We verified the factual claims underlying the argument carefully, more carefully in some ways than we might for a piece we found more immediately congenial, precisely because we wanted to be confident that our disagreement with the conclusion wasn't quietly lowering our scrutiny of the underlying facts.
Why this practice matters for our credibility overall
A publication that only runs guest opinion consistent with its own editorial instincts isn't really offering an opinion section at all - it's offering an extension of its own house view with different bylines attached. We'd rather be a publication that occasionally runs something we disagree with, done well.