Columns axed by our publisher

If your I-hate-the-NFL thread starter on the other board was an example of your style... well, he may have a point.

 

I believe that if you're not at an event, you have no business writing your opinion about it.

 

If we can put aside the number of bad columns out there (since there are tons of bad gamers, features, etc. as well), I don't see what would be the point of picking up a sports section with no columnists. If I want dry unopinionated material, I've got the AP via Yahoo or Google. Half the fun of reading the sports section is when it angries up the blood over some issue that the columnist is completely right or completely wrong about. What good would the Globe be if Red Sox fans couldn't give Shaunnessy the finger a couple days a week?

 

Nobody's against columnists, per se.

We're simply against horseshit columnists (Exhibit A: . . . )

 

Guess: What the guys here are saying is that when it's their opinion being written, it's fine; but if you're on the desk and someone else is writing an opinion column, it sucks.

columnist: getting paid to write your opinion. This is a great job. Who wouldn't aspire to do that?

 

Seems a little extreme. Perhaps they could have just banned summer column writing? Or national columns? Both my first and second shops got strict about columnists penning non-local columns, and in hindsight, I don't really blame them (kind of touchy at my second shop because there was a prep columnist, so the other guy wasn't allowed to write about preps, but he couldn't write about pros or state colleges, either. At an 85,000).

One problem with column writing in this day and age is that fans are more informed than every, and a lot of what's going on is that it's being discovered that the emporers have no clothes. Someone drops in for a day, writes a column about something they don't cover regularly and have little credibility about and the modern fan recognizes that. Personally I like the analysis stories that seem to be popping up more lately written by an expert in the field who also has sources, does some reporting, etc. to the drive-by columns.

Yeah, I really wouldn't want to read a local columnist's take on whether the Phillies are going to win the wild card or if Dusty Baker should be fired.

 

Hell, somebody has to, considering the Trib's sports ed is a Dusty cabana boy.

 

I'm talking about some random paper in southern Illinois or somewhere in Iowa that couldn't find Wrigley Field without a compass, not a paper like the Trib.

 

I don't know what the size of your paper is... and this isn't even directed at you, only a gripe of mine.
I hate it when I pick up smaller (10k-under), let's say located in the South, and they're writing something about T.O. or A-Rod. I've always thought it the job of smaller papers to service small-town happenings, small-town people and crap like that. It's boring as shit, but that's life -- deal with it, win awards and move on to bigger things.
Let the national guys write about T.O. For the most part, 99 out of 100 times the national guy is going to say it better anyways. They say it better than me, that's why they're working as the national guys and I'm not.

 

That's what I was trying to get at. I think people at smaller papers just get really anxious to write about the big-time stuff. I'd try to work out a compromise with your powers-that-be - you'll continue to do columns, but keep them local.

 

Agree with most of what was said here.

Best advice I ever heard about writing a column was to make yourself an expert. Whatever subject you are writing about, you should know more than anyone else. If you don't (which will be most often the case, no matter your position) the reader should never know it. I detest columns that are from a "fan's" perspective. The fan knows what he believes and knows what other fans believe through the wonders of communication w/ friends and that almighty god, sports talk radio. You have to bring something new to the table. And if you can't, you need to pick a new subject.

 

And somewhere, a publisher is mulling over a small pool of people, trying to figure out who "clever username" is.