Column word count

What do you shoot for? 750-800 words? Sound about right? I'm curious how long everyone writes. Is there kind of an industry standard?

 

I write until I've made my point.

Then I get out.

 

Then the deskers scream at you to cut half your column.

 

And I cut you where it runs out of space.... If you are lucky, I'll let it end with a period.

 

That's so the ad people won't scream at us because a too-long column ran over and covered up the ad.

 

It depends on the section. If I have a tight section, I tell columnists to keep it to about 18 inches (in News Edit Pro). If we're wide open, they can write longer and I'll jump it to an inside page.

 

Thomas Boswell used to say you write until it gets boring....which for me is somewhere between byline and dateline

 

You should probably worry about what your paper wants, not the industry standard.

 

Our columns are around 18-20 inches, occasionally longer.

 

our columns run about 15 inches if they run in the left-hand rail and don't jump. if they are packaged with event coverage, they can jump and don't have to be a specific length.

 

Of course, and this is not a knock, historically this answer is a lot different for Mitch Albom than almost anybody else. But they let him do it, and he took advantage of that freedom.

 

I don't know if there's an industry standard.

I write as long as I need to write. Sometimes it's no more than 430 words. Usually no more than 650.