What makes Sally Jenkins a good columnist?

We did JoPo a week or two ago and had some pretty good thoughts.

How about we try someone else.

Here's her latest, on the Beijing Olympics ticking time bomb:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/25/AR2008032503207.html?sub=AR
Jenkins' trademarks, to me - loooooong paragraphs. So the blogosphere can't throw that one at her.

Erudite writing without being unintelligble and overly professorly.

Educated POVs. I don't think she simply sits down and jackhammers out a column.

Thoughts from her regular readers?

 

Talent, and good genes.

End of thread.

 

Research. Supporting her arguments with facts. She has the advantage of writing only once or twice a month, too.

 

She thinks, she researches, she asks smart questions, thinks some more ... then she writes. As opposed to a "Shooting from the Lip" type column written by someone who believes he already knows everything about everything and need only announce his uninformed opinion for the world to behold.

 

Sally didn't exactly suck when she was writing four times a week...

 

Sally is one of the few left that will report the hell out of a column.
She will always have a support line after statement or opinion. She's not reactionary and she's not afraid to be unpopular or contrarian.
A Jenkins piece -- when I find the subject interesting -- is a joy.

 

Her Kwame Brown piece a few years back was amazing...

 

Even better, she makes no references to Imus.

 

Sally's columns sparkle, no question. But here's the thing: She's really more of a magazine columnist now than a newspaper columnist. She writes once a week, usually, rarely against a crushing deadline. She "thinks" because she has an inordinate amount of time to think. She "asks questions" because she has an inordinate amount of time to ask questions -- and to wait for people to call her back. Hers are the kind of columns that should be running on the back page of SI (and they probably would be if there wasn't bad blood between her father and the magazine). Talented? Sure, she's terrific. But she's able to maximize that talent because she has the World's Greatest Working Conditions. There are few things in our business that have a greater impact on quality than TIME.
And Mizzou, I'm at a loss for when Sally ever wrote four columns a week -- except maybe when she was covering an event like the Olympics. Never been a high volume writer.

 

She writes once a week but is considered full-time and gets a full-time paycheck?

Nice, if you can get it. Guess that boosts her into the top echelon of all those columnists whose pay was being debated on another thread. One column a week for $150K (or whatever) is like four columns a week for $600K, no?