media maven / By Marcy Burstiner

Remember Marge & Harold

(April 1, 2010)  Newspaper columns are funny things. I think sometimes that journalists only came up with the idea of objectivity because most of us are wimps — we like to avoid confrontation. The easiest way to do that is to withhold an opinion. When you only ask questions and don’t answer them, nothing can ever be your fault.

But in today’s journalistic world, objectivity is disappearing. News organizations now require the fly-on-the-wall reporter to produce opinions. This results in a lot of opinion columns by people who should not be opinion columnists. (If you think I’m one of them write hanksims@northcoastjournal.com and tell him to boot me off this page). Either they foam at the mouth like rabid dogs or they say nothing. I don’t like the former but I think the latter is worse. I can disagree with vitriol, but the nothingness is a total waste of my time as a reader.

So, in my own self-interest, here is a list of 10 tips for columnists and would be columnists:

1. It’s about the reader, not you. When I see too many “I”s in a story I go I-I-I! In art, the creative work is a reflection of the artist’s imagined reality. In journalism the work is a reflection of the reader’s reality. Mention your own problem only as evidence for the point you try to make.

2. Have a point. I discouraged staff columns on the Lumberjack newspaper after one student wrote about the D.A. recall election and blathered about how much he loved the name Worth Dikeman, and another student wrote about his favorite bathrooms on campus.

3. Write about something important. Newsprint is expensive. The reader’s time is valuable. Don’t waste it. Use your own problem only if it represents the real problems of a whole mess of your readers. But even so, is it really a big problem? Using this rule, I’ve avoided writing a column about columns. There are bigger journalistic problems out here, but readers now bug me to say something. If you want a great example of what not to do, check out Andy Rooney’s Jan. 17 video commentary on CBSnews.com on why he likes changes in the weather.

4. Write about something you know. I write about media. I leave gardening to Amy Stewart and baseball gloves to Dave Silverbrand. Student columnists like to write about foreign affairs, which they think are interesting and important but about which they know little. Instead they should write about problems that affect students.

5. When writing about what you know, don’t write about your spouse, your kid or your dog. Pretend you are on a date with your reader. Will the story you tell get you a second date or will it have your date looking repeatedly at her watch and thinking she’d rather be home watching Dancing with the Stars? When you pull out the family in your column you pull out verbal wallet photos. You think they are fascinating. No one else does.

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