Oh, interesting. I was interpreting "op-ed" to be the backronym "opinions and editorials page" rather than the more trade-jagon "opposite the editorial page," and as meaning a place for opinion content (which the OP was broadly complaining about) rather than news. Opinion content, in the form of editorials, has a much longer history, according to the bio of the editor you mentioned:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Bayard_Swope: "Although standard editorial pages have been printed by newspapers for many centuries, Swope established the first modern op-ed page in 1921."
> ...thereon I decided to print opinions, ignoring facts."
> Oh the times when we were more honest.
That part of the quote seems like something that's very easy to misinterpret if one was so inclined. Opinions themselves aren't facts, but I'm sure some would be tempted to interpret "ignoring facts" as meaning an embrace of falsehood or lies, in order to take a swipe at the media. That's almost certainly a misinterpretation.
Oh the times when we were more honest. That paper went out of business 10 years later. He only allowed employees to publish said pieces. The modern editorial where papers began allowing "anybody" to publish opinion based articles only began in 1970, with the NYTimes.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op-ed