We need to talk to each other: Why you’ll be reading a lot more civil, lively opinions in the Toronto Star

If you pick up a print edition of the Star on Saturday, you’ll find a new section, Opinion Weekly, a showcase for engaging opinion journalism on issues big and small, lofty and light. (If you’re worried about paper cuts, you can always find the section’s contents here.)
The first issue is dedicated to a subject close to our hearts: civil discourse.
We’ve all felt it, whether at work or at home, among friends or on social media, at one time or another; constructive conversation across political divides seems harder today than ever before. Much has been made of the polarization and hyper-partisanship, the divisive political rhetoric and social media rage-farming that contribute to this crisis. This new section, I’m sorry to say, won’t fix what’s broken. But we’ll do our best to do our part.
That doesn’t mean we’ll play it safe. We will host provocative ideas and fiery debates. Civil doesn’t mean passionless. Nor does it necessarily mean polite. We live in a time of war and climate crisis and cultural upheaval. It is often necessary and productive to disagree forcefully, to hold that we are right and that our rightness is important and that our interlocutor is wrong and their wrongness dangerous.
But it does mean that we will always work hard to keep these pages, and all our platforms, free of writing that demonizes or caricatures, that imputes bad-faith motives or engages with only the flimsiest formulations of opposing points of view. The straw-man arguments we see everywhere may please those in our bubbles, but they persuade no one of anything other than the other side’s fundamental otherness, deepening our divides and making productive conversation even harder. Discourse, on opinion pages and beyond, is most useful and most exciting when it engages in good faith with the smartest counterarguments, wrestling with rather than pretending away the knottiest parts of a problem.
Every week in this section, you will see an unusually wide range of opinion journalism. From in-depth reported essays and conversations with big thinkers to humourous quizzes and philosophical advice columns. Hot takes, yes, but also cooler ones, born of experience, learning and reflection. Personal stories that reveal universal truths. Expert commentary on the defining issues of the day. Great writing that brings the abstract down to earth and raises the mundane into the stratosphere. And you’ll encounter a wide range of views. A healthy ecosystem of ideas has room for both the socialist and the libertarian. But how much more interesting when the socialist grapples with the cost of lost freedoms and the libertarian with how to meet big challenges in the absence of collective action.  
We also hope to have some fun. The world can be a dismal place. Trust me, I know. If you find reading the news depressing, try writing it for a living. Of course we have to cover the depressing stuff – and we will. But this endless stream of misery is contributing to a growing epidemic of news avoidance that’s bad both for democracy and for the newspaper business. Yes, the world is dismal. But it’s not just that. It’s also funny and surprising and beautiful. Our job is to reflect all of this. And also, in this part of the newspaper, to push for better. The least we can do is model a healthier and more enriching kind of conversation, a civil discourse in an increasingly uncivil world, a bit of light in the darkness.