By Samantha Bennett NSNC President Just when we thought we were over our newspapers and turning our faces into the brisk wind of New Media to blog, learn HTML, Tweet or do whatever else is necessary to stay relevant and employed, the Newspaper Research Journal comes out with this: Print editions of newspapers…
By Laura Snyder Nationally Syndicated Columnist As newspapers and columnists continue to evolve, we hold our breath to see what happens next. Every week, we hear of another newspaper closing its doors or another columnist losing his/her job. The reasons are varied, but they boil down to the fact that there is…
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 Laura Snyder The future of news is wide open. As columnists, we have a chance to shape how people receive their news by the power of our collective voice. If you have an opinion about how the news industry should work in the future, write a column about it. Imagine the day when no…
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 Samantha Bennett NSNC President We keep hearing that print journalism is dead, that no one reads it, that it’s irrelevant and dull and deservedly outmoded. And yet … somehow, your local multiplex didn’t get that memo. In “State of Play,” Russell Crowe plays a crusty investigative reporter who goes after a…
By Samantha Bennett NSNC President Hope you’re all getting registered and making your hotel and travel arrangements for the conference in Ventura! Now more than ever, we need our network and the professional advice that our speakers and panelists will provide. I joined representatives of other groups at the Council of National Journalism Organizations’…
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…
Dave Lieber By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram NSNCEF Secretary Hey, bloggers. Welcome to the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, where, finally, you are invited to join and also enter our annual contest. After a long battle – I started my fight to let you in more than a decade ago…
ERNIE PYLE was a beloved journalist and military correspondent during WWII. Pyle studied journalism at Indiana University but left school to become a reporter for a small newspaper prior to moving to Washington. After working as a reporter and an aviation writer, he eventually became managing editor for the Washington Daily News. In 1932 he…
Samantha Bennett NSNC President I’m taking the buyout. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, for which I’ve worked for 14 years and written my column for a decade, offered buyouts to the entire staff in late December, with a get-out-if-you’re-going deadline of New Year’s Eve. Happy holidays. I weighed my joblessness in a vile economy…
By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram www.yankeecowboy.com There’s a recession in the U.S. economy, but a depression in the newspaper business. Not a financial depression, but a mental one. Everybody in the newsroom and in the executive suites is giving up. Worse, nobody in the business is standing up on a chair…
HeraldTimesOnline.com Commentary Frightening scene provides practical and personal revelations By Mike Leonard mleonard@heraldt.com June 26, 2008 I see all kinds of things when I look into Mardi¹s hazel eyes: shades of blue or green, depending on the day. Silent communication signaling consternation, concern, laughter or love. I’ve seen panic in my wife’s eyes a few…
Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star Telegram Columnist Secretary, NSNC Education Foundation I feared the worst. Of the 110 columnists whom I hosted in Grapevine, Texas three years ago for the 2005 NSNC conference, how many still have columnist jobs? I decided to find out. Sent an e-mail survey to all e-mail addresses…
By Bill Tammeus For a newspaper-related blog to be effective, it must give readers something useful they can’t get elsewhere and it must do that consistently. So it can’t be just another column full of words. Rather, it must offer links to related Web sites, helpful graphics, an opportunity to correspond with the blogger and…
By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram Columnist www.yankeecowboy.com My first journalistic mentor was noted writer H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger. While in high school, I read his columns in the University of Pennsylvania student newspaper and decided I wanted to be like him. I enrolled at Penn, and in my first week as a freshman…
