CJR: What about weeklies?
I'm including most of this post in a letter to the Columbia Journalism Review.
I sympathize with Steve Twomey's lament in CJR over the decline of the metro columnist, but Twomey should have evaluated the city columns of some metro weeklies. Twomey mentions the insipid columns of the Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn and Mary Schmich, but doesn’t mention Ben Joravsky's "The Works" column in the Chicago Reader. Joravsky is not very witty or funny, but he consistently writes about otherwise neglected city stories — always well reported, always about Chicago. His columns don't entirely match Twomey's ideal, but they are still effective and genuinely interesting rather than novel. What about other alt-weekly columnists?
(I ragged on Zorn in April. Don't know why I gave the post that title. I must be dumb.)
Young journalists — except for a few who become interested early on in city coverage — don’t seem likely to revive the metro column. They are trained to do their work with a peculiar combination of "objectivity" and social consciousness that doesn't allow for the assertiveness and originality a good metro columnist needs. Still, the alt-weekly metro columnist might have a chance, ironically because their papers' circulation relies more on entertainment than news value. As Twomey says, the prevailing strategy at major dailies seems to be to make the metro column an oasis of fluff amid the hard news. Alt-weekly columnists can do the inverse, and at least in Joravsky's case are making much more of the opportunity.
I sympathize with Steve Twomey's lament in CJR over the decline of the metro columnist, but Twomey should have evaluated the city columns of some metro weeklies. Twomey mentions the insipid columns of the Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn and Mary Schmich, but doesn’t mention Ben Joravsky's "The Works" column in the Chicago Reader. Joravsky is not very witty or funny, but he consistently writes about otherwise neglected city stories — always well reported, always about Chicago. His columns don't entirely match Twomey's ideal, but they are still effective and genuinely interesting rather than novel. What about other alt-weekly columnists?
(I ragged on Zorn in April. Don't know why I gave the post that title. I must be dumb.)
Young journalists — except for a few who become interested early on in city coverage — don’t seem likely to revive the metro column. They are trained to do their work with a peculiar combination of "objectivity" and social consciousness that doesn't allow for the assertiveness and originality a good metro columnist needs. Still, the alt-weekly metro columnist might have a chance, ironically because their papers' circulation relies more on entertainment than news value. As Twomey says, the prevailing strategy at major dailies seems to be to make the metro column an oasis of fluff amid the hard news. Alt-weekly columnists can do the inverse, and at least in Joravsky's case are making much more of the opportunity.
posted by Scott at 6:35 PM
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