Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock
Tuesday, May 3, 2005. It is far too easy for executives of media to pigeonhole columns into commentary. Or analysis. It then needs to be consistent, which is why humor and certain other person viewpoint columns are out these days.
You can’t have your toothpaste be peppermint one day and spearmint the next (or the new wintergreen and permafrost flavors).
The best columns, and actually most of the middlin’ ones, too, comprised voice as much if not more than commentary or analysis or first-person atmospheric reportage.
I’ve been thinking about this for a few weeks. I wanted it to be the next Brick. It’s way too complicated. It’s so complicated as a matter of fact that while this tangent has been a recent focus, actually I’ve thought about it for years. Another piece of it is my master’s thesis.
This current thought though is VOICE. What’s most important about the column is the columnist’s personality. It is the draw to readers. It is the reason a columnist bothers to write regularly.
That is the difference of a columnist: regularity. Sure, anyone can write a column, as readers are wont to say to the columnist they see in the auditorium lobby. It’s an essay, the one form of language everyone is rather uniformly taught to write.
The trick is to write column after column, when it’s easy or difficult, glib or reasoned, personal or rational, on a daily, weekly or monthly deadline.
What is missing, though, is Voice over consistent commentary. Feature and humor columns emphasize voice and are not consistent, always conservative say. Readers want voice, though. Do you know what Andy Rooney’s politics are? No. His opinions indicate he could be for a given president on some things not others. Rooney’s gift is that voice, and it works in his written columns, too.
Who comes after Andy? We need them being developed and exposed now. -30-
