Tuesday, May 3, 2005.<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n You can’t have your toothpaste be peppermint one day and spearmint the next (or the new wintergreen and permafrost flavors).<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Who comes after Andy? We need them being developed and exposed now. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technical-difficulties","tag-columnist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":94,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/06\/sedimental-over-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":0},"title":"Sedimental over you","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 12, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Sunday, June 12, 2005: The more essays, columns and commentary that I read the more I see that the opposite of humor is not seriousness or many of its synonyms. This perception may just be among current trends, but at least for the time being,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":93,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/06\/couple-columnists-hit-a-bar\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":1},"title":"Couple columnists hit a bar","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 24, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Two columnists walk into a bar Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, June 24, 2005: A temptation is to write rather complete articles from the notes I took at the just-completed conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, meeting in Grapevine, to the northeast of Fort Worth and northwest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Grapevine Lines"","block_context":{"text":"Grapevine Lines","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/grapevine-2005\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":415,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/03\/famous-columnist-school\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":2},"title":"Famous Columnist School","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Book report: The Art of Column Writing: Insider Secrets from Art Buchwald, Dave Barry Arianna Huffington, Pete Hamill and Other Great Columnists, by Suzette Martinez Standring The reviewing trade has a law that a critic doesn't write up works created by friends. It's a group of laws, actually. When a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mr. Boo Klist"","block_context":{"text":"Mr. Boo Klist","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/mr-boo-klist\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2492,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/12\/food-shelter-and-columns\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":3},"title":"Food, Shelter and Columns","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The following is my column for the December 2010 edition of monthly newsletter of the\u00a0National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Earlier this week I woke up presuming I could start this month's column with, \"Hello, I have a story to tell,\" and wing it. I didn't have a clue where to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4908,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2014\/07\/crafting-columns\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":4},"title":"#nsnc14dc: Crafting Columns, Getting Them Known","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Why were we here, besides for our writer friends and some sightseeing? To get better. Speakers at the 2014 conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists discussed politics, government and history, but the focus was on development of our skills. Hence, two wrap-up pieces. I tried\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Brick Bats Reportage"","block_context":{"text":"Brick Bats Reportage","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/brick-bats-reportage\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"John Avlon, Eric Heyl, Alexandra Petri and Ben Pollock after the morning session of the NSNC conference Saturday, June 28, 2014. ","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Four-by-SMS-062814-240x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1852,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/04\/mug-of-work-coffee-grown-cold\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":5},"title":"Mug of Work Coffee, Grown Cold","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"April 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"\bPrincipled newsrooms allow no gifts, but at Christmas the rule gets softened. One of the utilities has giant tins of caramel corn delivered, staffers dive in, and all know rate increase requests will be dissected in the news pages and mocked in commentary. That may be why the huge White\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Standing Column, with black ribbon to honor the memory of Gary Golden","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/The-Standing-Column-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1510,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/1510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}