Columnist tips from Dave Lieber
By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram www.YankeeCowboy.com One of my pet peeves is when people come up to me and say, “It’s a shame that the Internet is killing newspapers.” I heartily disagree. Newspapers survived for 15 years with the Internet offering our stuff for free. What’s killing newspapers, first and foremost, is…
Here’s Your Best Column Ever By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram Columnist http://www.yankeecowboy.com/ Somehow very few of us in NSNC are included in the new book, Deadline Artists: America’s Greatest Newspaper Columns. So in my last column I announced my own version – NSNC Members’ Greatest Columns. I asked for your…
you, the columnist By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram Columnist www.YankeeCowboy.com Nice publicity hit on the top-15-columns-of-all-time survey at the NSNC conference. Book researcher polls our membership. Results make news. Thanks to Newsweek-The Daily Beast senior political columnist John Avlon for asking us to help him do research for his new book, Deadline…
By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram Columnist www.YankeeCowboy.com I’m celebrating 20 years of NSNC membership. I got what I put into it. Great friends, more learning about column writing than anywhere else combined, an actual columnist job (hired while attending my first conference, no less), a lengthy career of growth and improvement, and, yes, worth…
You, the Columnist By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram Columnist www.YankeeCowboy.com Years ago, in this space, I wrote a piece wondering what the 21st century columnist would be like. Of course, I got it wrong. I didn’t understand how social media, not yet invented, would change what we do. I didn’t realize that the 21st…
you, the columnist My-picture-on-top-of-the-column-syndrome By Dave Lieber Columnists.com The other day I was insecure about something. I got zero comments beneath my column on my newspaper’s website for what I thought was a pretty good column. Then I clicked on the comments for my columnist colleague at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Bob Ray Sanders.…
you, the columnist By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram Columnist www.YankeeCowboy.com Are you ready to publish an e-book? When I decided this summer to jump in to this rapidly-growing market, I searched the Internet for an up-to-date guide showing how to do it yourself, who to contact and what the difficulties are. Couldn’t find one.…
you, the columnist By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram Do you have a harder time concentrating these days because of distractions? Does it take a greater effort to make time to read, research, write and get things done? Is keeping to a long-term plan tough in the midst of an over-stimulated day? …
you, the columnist Social media was built for YOU So why aren’t you doing a better job? By Dave Lieber NSNC Education Foundation Secretary I heard somebody say the other day that the only thing social media does for you is make you less social. Knew you’d like that. You’re a…
you, the columnist By Dave Lieber NSNC Education Foundation Secretary I was cleaning out the office the other day and came across my notes from my very first NSNC conference in Portland, Oregon in 1993. I remember it like yesterday. (Cliché alert!) I wasn’t a columnist when I arrived, but was one…
You, the columnist By Dave Lieber davelieber.org A little disgusted is how I feel when I read these words from Time magazine book reviewer Lev Grossman about how writers are going to have to write differently for people who read their work on cell phones or who can’t focus too long on one subject: …
You, the Columnist By Dave Lieber www.WatchdogNation.com Dear Ann Kolson, I read the obituary of your husband, Steve, in The New York Times the other day, and my heart sank(“Steven Lovelady, 66, Acclaimed Editor”). You see, I have always tried to thank those who helped me learn the craft of journalism. Years afterward, I would…
By Dave Lieber www.WatchdogNation.com By now, as a columnist, writer, information entrepreneur, whatever you call yourself these days, you have figured out that the chief currency in this stage of the information age is the keyword search in a search engine of your name. Borrowing from Microsoft’s search engine, when someone looks you…
By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram NSNCEF Secretary You’re Kelly Kazek, managing editor of the Athens (Alabama) News Courier, and you just enjoyed one of the biggest days of your life. Your first book was published, and you shared the party with everyone at the town square. As a 5-year member…
By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram Columnist WatchdogNation.com [The following is an abridged version of Dave’s talk at the 2009 Ventura conference.] Originally, this workshop was going to be called “How to have the best writing year of your life.” Then as the economy crashed, we billed this as “Keeping your columnist…
By Dave Lieber http://www.YankeeCowboy.com Fort Worth Star-Telegram Do you think about your karma? I think about it every day. I don’t worry about deadlines. I worry that I’m not putting enough good karma out there so it comes back. So I go overboard, dumping karma over the side of my life boat as if…
By Dave Lieber NSNC Education Foundation Secretary Every day seems more dire than the last. Layoffs. Buyouts. Farewell e-mails to the entire staff that break your heart. For you, the columnist, the world is changing in a rush of history. A collision of forces beyond your control. Yet a columnist’s…
