{"id":2165,"date":"2010-08-01T11:52:45","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T16:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/?p=2165"},"modified":"2011-04-15T14:14:37","modified_gmt":"2011-04-15T19:14:37","slug":"newspaper-paper-or-plastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/08\/newspaper-paper-or-plastic\/","title":{"rendered":"Newspaper, Paper or Plastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

My first “President’s Column” for <\/small><\/em>columnists.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/small><\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you for electing me president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Didn\u2019t you hear? I have not published a running column since Sept. 16, 2001<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instead I\u2019ve written at www.benpollock.com\/brick for nearly seven years. After the first year, the water warms up. Blogging is how I\u2019ve coped with the recession and the panicking publishing industry. We\u2019re all attacking this differently. The iceberg appeared so suddenly. As president, I\u2019ll help the NSNC help you.<\/p>\n

We cannot reverse the value of your home, though.<\/p>\n

I joined the NSNC in 1991, toward the end of its First Wave: staff columnists but also writers like me, editors or reporters with columns on the side. Through conferences and newsletters we gave one another advocacy, support and education, leavened with irreverence.<\/p>\n

In the mid-1990s the Second Wave began to roll in, free-lance columnists from veterans to novices. The First Wave hung on, with more staff columnists joining. High jinks ensued.<\/p>\n

The Third Wave has started. We added online-only columns to the annual contest. Then we welcomed blog-columns, where entries must be bound by commonly accepted journalism values and honor the three-century history of newspaper columns in tradition, format, spirit and variety.<\/p>\n

Important: The NSNC needs all three waves. The NSNC serves columnists everywhere at all levels of experience, in all media and formats, through education, support and advocacy. A column is a running series of essays, from personal to persuasive, employing research and reporting or extending to fantasy and satire. Written columns are the most common, but audio and video essays are no less valid. Journalism standards and ethics are observed in columns.<\/p>\n

A column is a column in essentially any media. It\u2019s a technical term, medium, meaning canvas, stone, paper, pixels etc. Newspaper as a medium is abstract. It always has had different forms.<\/p>\n

Decades ago, neighborhood sheets would be run off on mimeographs<\/a> (Google it) and be called X. In San Francisco<\/a> and Liberia<\/a>, a few journalists now write news and comment on chalkboards calling them X. Our papers call their websites online X. Salon.com<\/a> and Slate.com<\/a> update several times a day like multiple-edition X \u2014 they\u2019re all newspapers.<\/p>\n

So we columnists board the good ship NSNC \u2014 lifeboat or yacht \u2014 and watch for icebergs. Maybe I\u2019m thinking arctic because it\u2019s past 90 and not even noon yet in Arkansas.<\/p>\n

—\u00a0This column was first published in the August 2010 edition of The Columnist<\/em>,
\nthe monthly newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00b6 Update of April 15, 2011: Handwritten newspapers created and posted, rather than published, after Japan’s big earthquake. The Newseum in Washington<\/a> exhibited some of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My first “President’s Column” for columnists.com. Thank you for electing me president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Didn\u2019t you hear? I have not published a running column since Sept. 16, 2001. Instead I\u2019ve written at www.benpollock.com\/brick for nearly seven years. After the first year, the water warms up. Blogging is how I\u2019ve coped […]<\/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":[7],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-2165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-course-of-words","tag-columnist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2303,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/11\/certifiably\/","url_meta":{"origin":2165,"position":0},"title":"Certifiably","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"First published in the November 2010 issue of the e-Columnist By Ben S. Pollock President,\u00a0National Society of Newspaper Columnists \"Politics make strange bedfellows\" goes the quote by 19th-century newspaperman Charles Dudley Warner, and this fall it's been columnists getting renown for jumping on the mattress. Columnists, commentators, news analysts, bloggers,\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":1115,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2009\/04\/newspaper-stat-nsnc-stet\/","url_meta":{"origin":2165,"position":1},"title":"Newspaper Stat, NSNC Stet","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"April 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"There's been e-talk among the membership about renaming the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. I was for it, liked some of the proposals, but now I'm agin it. It's not that I'm sore that my suggestion, International House of Toast (nod to Bob and Ray) was ignored. We would be\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":3484,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2012\/02\/no-taking-ulysses-for-granted\/","url_meta":{"origin":2165,"position":2},"title":"No Taking Ulysses for Granted","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This column first was published as the \u201cPresident\u2019s Message\u201d in the February 2012 newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Spring \u2014 OK, this is winter but I\u2019m an optimist \u2014 is busy-time for the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. \u2022 We\u2019re halfway through gathering entries for the annual\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":"US 50 dollar bill obverse, series 2004","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Series2004NoteFront_50-300x128.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3627,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2012\/05\/fare-thee-well-address\/","url_meta":{"origin":2165,"position":3},"title":"Fare Thee Well Address","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This column first was published as the \u201cPresident\u2019s Message\u201d in the May 2012 newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Dear Larry, [NSNC Vice President Laurence D. Cohen is on the slate of nominees for the May 6 election, for 2012-14 president.] This, the columnists presidency, has been a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1794,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/02\/columnist-sympathizer\/","url_meta":{"origin":2165,"position":4},"title":"Columnist Sympathizer","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A nice thing just happened. On Jan. 31, I was elected vice president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. I've been a card-carrying columnist since 1991, joining during the run of my column Mirthology, in the old Arkansas Democrat. The post is interim, to cover after a resignation, until\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":"Card-Carrying Columnist Card","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/NSNC_card-300x180.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3160,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2011\/10\/litmus-flavored-columns\/","url_meta":{"origin":2165,"position":5},"title":"Litmus Flavored Columns","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"October 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This column first was published as the \u201cPresident\u2019s Message\u201d in the October 2011 newsletter of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Your president is looking out for your welfare. Thank me later. Tracy Beckerman, chairman of the Social Media Committee, although an NSNC member for several years, still is trying\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165","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=2165"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2171,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions\/2171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}