Category: Articles

Miscellaneous articles.

April 18: A Day to Celebrate Columnists and Their Readers

By M.C. Coolidge April 18 is National Columnists Day, and whether you love ’em, hate ’em, or love to hate ’em — newspaper columnists sure can make reading the paper a lot more fun. We all need to stay informed with hard news, but honestly, there’s only so much Brexit and brouhaha about the economy…

Who’s Talking About National Columnists Day 2019

Thank you to all columnists who took the time to write about National Columnists Day! Below are the columns penned in honor of National Columnists Day. In the social media-Julian Assange era, would Americans click ‘like’ for Ernie Pyle? By Chris Carosa Would America today embrace the next Ernie Pyle? He wasn’t a muckraker, a…

Post a Selfie for National Columnists Day

You may remember that National Columnists Day is also when we ask you to join us in celebration with a selfie and the hashtag #IAmAColumnist. You can take a look at last year HERE. We want you to join the fun again! Plus there’s more! If you want to go beyond the selfie and pen…

I Am a Columnist

By Paul Lander NSNC Member Confession, on National Columnists Day = I’ve wanted to hold up a sign that says “I Am a Columnist” with an arrow pointing at an actual columnist. With that in mind, I spent what appeared to be most of July in court. Actually, it was only one day; but if…

President’s Message: Take a Sad Song and Make It Better

By Chris Carosa NSNC President In January, the Reuters Institute issued a report titled “More Important, But Less Robust? Five Things Everybody Needs to Know about the Future of Journalism.” It’s their fourth point I’d like to focus on. It states that the ongoing pressure faced by current media business models continues to weaken journalism.…

Mary C. Curtis on Column-Writing in a Polarized Time

Mary C. Curtis

By Dave Astor NSNC Archivist When Mary C. Curtis speaks at our Buffalo conference on June 22, she plans to discuss how opinion writers can approach sensitive issues – and deal with the reader reaction that follows. Ms. Curtis is the perfect person to talk about that, because her Roll Call column and other media…

He Understands That Writing Should Be Understandable

By Dave Astor NSNC Archivist When David Cay Johnston speaks June 22 at our conference in Buffalo, NY, he’ll discuss how to present complicated information to readers in an understandable way. The 2001 Pulitzer Prize winner said the importance of that can’t be overemphasized – whether the person doing the writing is a columnist, blogger,…

Quit Stepping On Our Turf

By Lisa Smith Molinari NSNC Past President The beauty of being a columnist is that I can write whatever I damn well please. Piece of cake, right? Frankly, writing columns isn’t easy. In fact, there are moments when I’d rather chew my own arm off than pen my weekly submission. But what makes column writing…

AMON! The Ultimate Texan Gets World Premiere

Hurst, Texas: Artisan Center Theater in Hurst, the largest community theater in North Texas, is producing a world premiere play, AMON! The Ultimate Texan, written by renowned journalist, NSNC member, and longtime Texan, Dave Lieber. Lieber received the 2017 NSNC Legacy Award for his many contributions to the organization. The play honors and celebrates the…

John Avlon Has Been a Columnist in Various Media

By Dave Astor NSNC Archivist   CNN’s John Avlon will be one of the NSNC’s main speakers during our June 20-23 conference in Buffalo, NY. Avlon – who’ll keynote the Will Rogers Humanitarian Award evening on June 21 – is a senior political analyst and fill-in anchor at CNN, former Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast, author…

Ask Alex: Is Self Publishing Selling Out?

Dear Alex: So the time-honored question on the lips of a roundtable of writers extraordinaire has again raised its head – does self-publication still carry the vanity cloud? Can a “real” writer self-publish with head held high or should one hold out for traditional publication? I see the lists of books put out by many…

Learning in OKC That a Columnist Group Was Much More Than OK

By Joy Steele NSNC Member I believe the most profound gift I’ve received as a writer—other than a John Steinbeck Paddywax candle—is the gift of time and undivided attention by my mentor in the NSNC. In the Spring of 2007, I traveled to Oklahoma City to attend the Will Rogers Writers Workshop. Sponsored by the…

‘The Day I Became a Columnist Was One of the Happiest of My Life’: a Q&A With 2019 Pyle Recipient Kathleen Parker

By Dave Astor NSNC Archivist Our 2019 Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award winner is…Kathleen Parker! She’ll receive the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ highest honor at the June 20-23 NSNC conference in Buffalo, New York. Ms. Parker is a widely syndicated columnist who previously won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, among other awards. She’s…

NSNC Criticizes Attacks on the News Media

In the run-up to tomorrow’s election, President Trump has made several attacks on news media and journalism, calling us an enemy of the people and purveyors of falsehoods. The National Society of Newspaper Columnists condemns these statements on journalism as both inaccurate and harmful.  Since 1977, the NSNC has been comprised of writers who are…

Compelled and Propelled by the NSNC

By Curtis Honeycutt NSNC Member Earlier this year I was looking for some column advice when I stumbled into Suzette’s path. I didn’t realize she literally wrote the book on it. Not only that, I wasn’t aware of the existence of the NSNC. Suzette encouraged me to join the Columnist Clubhouse group on Facebook and…

My Top 10 Columnist Books. Have You Read Them?

You, the Columnist By Dave Lieber Dallas Morning News columnist My kid brother visited recently and gasped when he saw my home office library. Hundreds of journalism books. Biographies of newspaper legends. Many columnist collections. “Get rid of them,” he said. “Why?” “Cause when you die it’s a pain to handle this. I had to…

Astounding Numbers

By James A. Haught NSNC Member I’ve been a newspaperman for 67 years.  I began in 1951 as a teenage hot-lead printer trainee at West Virginia’s Charleston Daily Mail.  I developed a yen to be a news reporter, so I volunteered to work without pay in the Daily Mail newsroom on my days off from…