Here's a contrarian thought on good writers ...

It's not a column, then.
It's just somebody who has no opinion trying to cash a bigger check.

 

You could not be more wrong. It's not possible.

 

If a column does not have an opinion, a distinct point of view, then it's just a feature with a mug on it. I've never believed in that. Feature writing is feature writing. Column writing is column writing. Royko did not write features. Then again, I'm talking to somebody who respected Hunter S. Thompson, who buried his brilliant talent in drugs and self-obsession. So why bother.

 

This was a column.

 

Beautifully done.
And thanks for proving my point.

 

Show me in Heinz's piece where there's any opinion from the writer.

 

More Duvall: "You're not a columnist. You're a reporter who writes long."

When I have time to read, I gravitate toward the features in Esquire. I've worn thin on Klosterman, but Jones, Tom Junod, et al, are usually quality reads. As far as newspaper columnists, well, there are few whose opinion I value above my own.

 

Sirs, Madames,

Yeah, Heinz needed a couple of lines in there right off the top about horse racing being a brutal sport -- that would have put his point across. It sort of gets lost.

It just seems to me that there's too much opinion on balance and too much shouting and wiseacre self-congratulation in columns. "Subtle" is a dirty word in the business of soapbox sermons.

YHS, etc

 

I didn't say there was opinion in there.
I said you proved my point.
It was a terrific piece. It was a featurized news story. It wasn't a column, regardless of how it was presented in the paper.

 

I'm with you. But that doesn't seem to be what editors (or maybe even readers) seem to want.

Perfect example is KC. Whitlock and Posnanski are two of the best at what they do. Posnanski is a fantastic writer who may or may not take stance on a given day. But which one is the identity of section?

 

It seems to me that in these dire times, "column" has somehow become synonymous with "opinion." Much to our sadness, I think. Go back and look at the greats and you'll find a lot of straight-up storytelling. Always with a larger metaphorical point, certainly, but storytelling it was.

And a follow up question for SF Express:

Are we talking about writers of all stripes and varieties here, or just columnists?

 

Are you serious? Sports commentary drives the business these days. People WANT to read opinion. They want to disagree. They want to be pissed off. Why do you think columnists are the most-well known people in our industry? People want analysis. They want to think about things they haven't thought before. And mostly they want to tell everyone what an idiot the columinist is for writing this morning's column. People want columns more than they want pretty writing. Every section needs a voice, and a strong one at that.