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(Links to fine writing in
newspapers.
Last altered, updated 13October2006.)
+ NEWSPAPERS'
AND ONLINE DAILIES' COLUMNS +
Sam Riley, Editor, |
I harbor a conviction that I can read nothing but columns (editorials, op-ed pieces, commentators and national, local and sports columnists) and remain abreast of current events. In fact, one probably can stay better informed about issues and current debates than one who reads nothing but the front-page news. Besides, it's a lot more fun and one is exposed to the true "literature" of journalism. Some of the finest writing in newspapers is found in columns and editorials (some of the worst, too).
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(Select newspaper by letter): A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
Albuquerque
Journal:
One nice feature of
this site is the collection of the week's editorials. Only one or two
local
columnists, but one can get a feel for the community in a couple of
week's
reading these writers (and the letters they generate).
American
Reporter:
The online newspaper
that claims to be the first online publication with original content
also
houses a stable of pretty good columnists. Despite my being one of the
stable, I'm recommending the other fine writers who appear here, and
that
includes the fine editorials of Editor Joe Shea.
Arizona
Republic:
Good site for
relatively
conservative editorials, but not much for columnists of any stripe.
Arkansas
(Little Rock) Democrat-Gazette:
Editorials and one
or two commentaries on this page.
Atlanta
Journal-Constitution:
Go from here to find
what is billed as "realistic conservative thinking for Georgians."
Baltimore
Sun:
This stable used to the
the
haunt of H.L.Mencken; and Jack Germond and Jules Witcover. To get to
the Sun's editorials, click here.
Boston
Globe:
Sports commentary
probably shines best from the Globe's fine columnist staff. Years
ago, The Globe made
some
notorious headlines with a scandal surrounding one of its
columnist's
fabricated stories. I've commented on that elsewhere.
Boston
Herald:
Mike Barnicle, the
columnist who got in trouble with the Globe, now writes periodically
for the Herald. While the Herald often seems a second-fiddle
to
the larger Globe, many of its people match the Globe's thinkers.
Carroll
County (Md.) Times:
An impressive and
extensive list of columnists for a relatively small newspaper. Must be
that Beltway influence.
Charlotte
(N.C.) Observer:
This is the
editorials
page. Navigate from here to columnists.
Chicago
Tribune:
Bob Greene used to
highlight the cast in this line-up before discovery of his moral lapse
lost him his job and his audience. The site remains one of the
most
extensive collection of columnists on the Web.
Chicago
Sun Times:
One of the most
extensive
listings of columnists in any newspaper, obviously competing with the
Tribune.
Christian
Science Monitor:
Some of the sanest
commentary on the everyday world is found in the writings of the
Monitor's
little-known columnists. Their international and national analysts are
considered among the most astute and objective observers as well. Also
the home of a special Cybercoverage
column.
Cleveland
Plain Dealer:
Not exactly easy to
find opinions from the home page, but some navigating will track down
the
opinion page. For entertainment and feature columns, use the "ultra-guide."
Colorado
Springs Gazette Telegraph:
For the generally
conservative views of this paper, go to this page. You'll have to
search
from here for regular columnists.
Columbus
Dispatch:
Solid presentation
of several days of editorials and letters.
Daily
Oklahoman:
Local issues
dominant
and highlighted in these editorials.
Dallas
Morning News:
The columnists are
gathered with the editorials and letters to the editor.
Denver
Post:
A nice touch of the
Post's line-up is their identification of many columnists by the job
they
perform at the newspaper, or, as with the sports columnists,
identification
of the sport in which each writer specializes. At a separate page, one
finds editorials: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/opinion.htm
Deseret
News:
Opinion pieces and
columns mixed at this darn good little paper and Web site in Utah.
Browsers
must hit the "Opinion" link and the calendar link at the top of the
home
page.
By the way, the
Deseret
News is produced by the LDS church.
Detroit
Free Press:
The Freep, as it's
affectionately called, provides one of the most comprehensive newspaper
Web sites on the WWW, and this link takes one to columnists,
editorials,
and readers forums neatly and easily. The site also has a fine job link
for positions in the Knight-Ridder chain and lots of helps for
journalists
online. Of course, it also is disliked by many because it has failed to
negotiate a Guild contract for almost four years.
Detroit
News:
A fine set of
writers
housed at this site of the nation's largest afternoon paper.
Earth
Times:
This NY Times
look-a-like
site has Tom Wicker as one of its stable of columnists.
Evening
Telegram (of St. John's, Newfoundland):
Sorry for allowing
my heritage to show through, but this paper's "columns" link leads to
an
amazing line-up of local columnists. The provincial paper offers
columns
from the executive editor, the assignments editor, the managing editor,
and several other editors and working stiffs. In addition, the Evening
Telegram has an editorial cartoonist with considerable talent, KT, also
known as Kevin Tobin.
Freelance-Star
(Fredericksberg, Va.):
This newspaper
recently
switched from p.m. to a.m. and added a Sunday section. In the switch,
an
easy route to its columnists disappeared. One can still get to selected
commentaries and editorials from the updated home page, though.
Hampton
Roads Pilot:
Nice mix of
national
and local issues discussed in this mini-archive of opinions from the
Virginia
coast.
Hartford
Courant:
In addition to
this
site for editorials, the Courant runs a "who we are" page that is a
primer
on editorials and their meaning and significance. It also tries to
explain
the "endorsement" process of newspaper editorial boards. Well worth
reading.
Houston
Chronicle Interactive:
As one might
expect,
this pioneering online news site has gathered its columnists into a
neat
and convenient package.
Indianapolis
Star News:
A fairly
comprehensive
sampling of the opinions from these conservative newspapers in
America's
homeland and the capital of "Hoosier Hysteria."
International
Herald Tribune:
The home page
serves
as a gateway to its features. One simply must scroll down to find the
links.
Kansas
City Star:
Nice, easy
approach
to both opinions and columns here. The Star provides a page that
introduces
its editorial board and offers readers means to contact all columnists,
including the syndicated columnists that the newspaper runs.
Las
Vegas Review-Journal:
Thorough
presentation
of a wide range of columnists here.
London
Daily Telegraph:
Often only one
opinion
piece each day show up at this site.
Longview
(Wa.) Daily News:
A small paper with
a Pulitzer (Mt. St. Helens coverage) reputation and some timely
editorial
comment collected here.
Los
Angeles Times:
This link doesn't
go to the Times' regular columns, but one can navigate from here to
find
them.
Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel:
A sampling of
local
columnists. One has to search to find national writers or the
newspaper's
editorials.
Minneapolis
Star Tribune:
Great little
search
tool takes one to an annotated listing of those who've been published.
NandO
Times/News:
The pioneering
online
daily newspaper collects opinions from all over the published WWW. ***truly
outstanding collection.
Newark
Star-Ledger:
The editorial page
editor of the Star-Ledger, Richard Aregood, left the Philadelphia
Inquirer
in part because he thought he'd have a better staff and a better
opportunity
to avoid a market-driven opinion organ. The lineup of this chain's
columnists shows it's an uphill struggle.
Newsday:
Clean, quick,
easily
navigable, and with Jimmy Breslin at the top of the order.
New
York Daily News:
This link gets one
to the News' columnists. Navigate to Metro Sports for the sports
columnists
and other links for other specialist columnists. One may have to scroll
to the bottom of a section as well to find the columnists.
New
York Post:
One must consider
that almost everything printed in the Post is a column. A nice feature
of its site: easy and quick navigation. Check various categories to
pinpoint
columnists. Go to "gossip," for example.
New
York Times:
This page is their
op-ed site. Scout around for more columns. This is also home of the
famous
Pulitzer-winning "Sports
of the Times" column.
Norfolk
Virginia Pilot:
After scrolling to
the end of all the editorials and letters, one finds the columnists.
Oregonian:
Only two
columnists
get posted on this hard-to-find-the-opinion-pages site. Not up to the
standards
of such a fine newspaper. I suspect the powers that be are afraid
they'll
lose advertising if they "give away" their product online.
Orlando
Sentinel:
An excellent index
to all the opinion in the Sentinel, and for most of them an e-mail
address
for access to truly interactive journalism. Bravo!
Philadelphia
Inquirer:
Some fine
editorials
here with opening essays and biographical statements by the Editorial
Board
that produces the editorial and op-ed pages. Also the home of
prize-winning
cartoonist Tony Auth. Philly Online doesn't exactly make it easy to get
to the Inquirer's columns. Work backwards from these bios.
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette:
Biographies and
archives
accompany each columnist in this stable. Includes Tony Norman, a human
interest columnist who often brings a sane sense of God to his musings
on life in modern society.
Providence
Journal:
One will have to
track
from here to find the regular columnists. The Projo divides them into
internal
writers and external writers.
Raleigh
News & Observer:
Historically the
N&O
(site of NandO's origin) has had some prize-winning editorialists.
Check
on "editorial" (at bottom of the page) and "opinion" to get to the
thinkers'
pages.
Roanoke
(Va.) Times:
A typical site for
mid-sized newspaper's opinions.
Rocky
Mountain News:
Provides a nice
capsule
biography of each of its writers. A nice touch.
San
Antonio Express News:
A worthwhile
line-up
including one or two columns that are produced for online visitors
only.
Someone in San Antonio is paying much attention to opinions online.
San
Diego Union-Tribune:
Mostly editorials
at this site, but one or two columnists are featured.
San
Francisco Chronicle:
A wonderful array
of "darned good columns" as the site boasts of Jon Carroll's offerings.
Columnists here attempt to be excessively cute. Too many appear to be
trying
to out-Barry the East Coast's Dave Barry. Carroll left last year to
enter
the academic world.
San
Jose Mercury News:
This is a special
page among the mercury news' opinion pages that offers advice on "how
to
write for the opinion page."
Sarasota
(Fla.) Herald-Tribune:
Under the rubric
of
"Our Views," this coastal newspaper presents local and national
editorials.
Finding featured columnists at this site, however, is a difficult
chore.
Try using the search tool on the home page and put in the names Tom
Tryon
or Daryl Lease.
Seattle
Post-Intelligencer:
About two weeks
worth
of opinions located here as the P-I plays catch-up on the Web after a
16-year
JOA restriction is lifted.
Seattle
Times:
The Pacific
Northwest's
dominant paper provides editorials and key columnists on one page. Some
suspect the family publisher of steering the editorial policy in a
self-serving
manner.
St.
Paul Pioneer Press:
Includes a
religion
columnist of some talent, Clark Morphew, who's likely to ask readers to
pray for something, as he recently did in requesting prayer for B'ahais
in Iran. (In the last week of December,
2002,
AP reported Morphew's death from lung cancer at age 64.)
St.
Petersburg Times:
Hard to know who's
doing the writing until one calls up the column here.
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch:
This list includes
national as well as local columnists.
Stockton
(Calif.) Record:
Local angles all
around
here. For editorials and news columnists, click here.
Sydney
Morning Herald -- Column 8:
This is an
intriguing
column that appears to be an amalgamation of many editorialists'
thoughts
and observations on life "down under." Something like the New Yorker's
"Talk of the Town," but a bit more whimsical and epigrammatic.
Tampa
Tribune:
Editorials are
archived
here cleanly and simply. Another page similarly presents the paper's columnists.
Toledo
Blade:
The Blade's food
columnist,
science columnist and movie critic are among the many other feature
columns
one finds at this index page. Scroll to the bottom for an archive.
Editorials
and Letters are accessible from this page.
Toronto
Globe and Mail:
Lots of commentary
concerning the United States shows up in these writings.
Washington
Post:
The bigs inside
the
Beltway are here: Broder, Boswell, Greenfeld, et al. An excellent
archives
and search engine allows one to track down all writers.
Washington
Times:
This conservative
bastion goes heavy on politics in its commentaries.
Wichita
Eagle:
Neatly planned and
arranged for access to editorials, letters and local columnists. An
interesting
approach to readers' forum: Callers to a special line have 45 seconds
to
speak what's on their mind. I'll bet they don't put a similar governor
on editorial writers and columnists!
Yakima
Herald:
A great lineup of
local columnists here.
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AltaVista's Looksmart Category:
A wonderful collection of columns and news articles from multiple sources, especially newspapers on the Web.
MSNBC's "Opinions":
More of a collection of news stories, but with a little navigation one can reach an amazingly comprehensive array of syndicated columnists.
Pulitzer Prize-winning columns:
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(I'm slow building this list. Bear with me.) |
David Astor's "Syndicate World":
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/Tad Bartimus:
Use the columns pull-down menu to locate this one. Astor's column will keep one abreast of what's going on with comic, newspaper and magazine syndicated columnists. It's part of Editor & Publisher online.
http://www.juliebenson.com
Benson is a humor writer -- a promotionally proclaimed "fourth B" with Buchwald, Berry and Brombeck -- trying to make a living off her posted online columns as a writer for the Abiogenesis Publications group in Bellingham, Wash. Thus, the site offers only samples. One must drop $20 a pop to download her column, clearly aimed at the publication market. Benson updates her online offerings each month, providing about three samples with each update. Humor, as Benson acknowledges, is "the hardest genre of all." She doesn't provide fall down belly laughs, but instead, like her inspirational "B's", goes for a consistent mix of the wry and wacky often found in the ordinary.
Kimberley
Blaker
(The Wall):
http://www.TheWall-OnChurchAndState.com
This young columnist largely writes on maintaining the separation of church and state. Her columns are cogent and informed. Ostensibly a writer on religious and philosophical issues, Blaker's columns make it easy to tell what she opposes but not always easy to latch on to what she's advocating. Her views have been endorsed by Christians of moderate and left-wing persuasion as well as by humanists and atheists. That being said, her voice is an often lonely one battling the torrent of Christian right-wing rhetoric on the Web.
Hiawatha Bray
(Boston
Globe):
Buckley's syndicate archives his columns, but they're a bit late posting them. Thanks to the Sacramento Bee, one can get to an up-to-date archive of the syndicated columns of the intellectual guru of American conservativism. (Along with many others, by the way.)
One of the intelligensia of sports writing from Sports Illustrated who often writes about something other than sports
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/downs_hugh_bio.htmlDowns is one of television's hidden gems, in my opinion. A fine writer, whose intelligence and wit come through on the printed page even more than on television, Downs will forever be endeared to my heart by one small anecdote: When his family referred to him as a "walking encyclopedia," Downs retorted, "more like a walking pamphlet." Great pamphlet material can be found by searching ABC's site for Downs' writings. Every Friday, ABC.com posts Downs' online column, Insites.
Matt Drudge's homepage:
http://www.usatoday.comCharles Haynes (The Tennessean; The Freedom Forum)
Going to the site and plugging in Grossman's name in the search engine might get one to some of her columns, which are generally erudite and informed. Otherwise, one will get a list of her articles on a variety of religious expressions.
Haynes is the resident religion scholar for the Freedom Forum. He recently produced a book critical of the nation's educational system, arguing that schools do not take religion seriously enough in their curricula. Haynes' column appears regularly in The Tennessean, the Gannett newspaper in Nashville. His columns are notable for the issues they raise, not for the positions Haynes' takes.
David Hipschman
(Casper,
Wyo., Star Tribune) "Cyberland":
A columnist devoted to hiking, walking and healthful travel with lots of tips. As much as I like it, this column has a little too much of an advertorial ring to it for my taste.
Katz's provocative column, which often criticizes the traditional media, appeared under the label "synapse" on the Hotwired Web site; he has since started writing regularly for the Freedom Forum's free!Web site, and recently wrote a "spiritual" book about living in isolation in upstate New York. He's apparently devoting himself to books these days rather than commentary.
The former executive editor of the Modesto Bee, a sister paper, is now the ombudsman for the SacBee. This is one of the few sites I know that collects the writings of its ombudsman into a mini-archive. If one has trouble finding his stuff, put "ombudsman" in the search engine and take it from there.
You won't have to navigate far to find the strident writings of this daily online news site's co-founder and co-editor. Layne represents a throw-back to an earlier voice-of-outrage writing that he hopes to resurrect as a significant voice online. Layne also does reviews and a column for the Online Journalism Review under the rubric "Citizen Layne." One of his columns ("The summer of sackcloth and ashes, August 14, 1998) argues that the best columnists are found online. Not quite, yet, but they're getting there.
Known as "press clips," these columns provide some of the best news and commentary on the profession of journalism as it's practiced in the trenches. Ledbetter recently raised the ire of journalism educators by claiming j-schools are moving too close to becoming business schools with a journalism component.
In September, Ledbetter left the Village Voice. One can still get to some of his columns at the above URL.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist left the Daily News in 1998 to become the 12th ombudsman(woman?) for the Washington Post, replacing Geneva Overholser, who remains with the Post as a columnist. A mini-archive of Shipp's Pulitzer-winning entry remains at the News' site, as well as several of the New York life columns that she made popular. Shipp left the Post in October of 2000 to return to teaching at Columbia University, noting that the issue of credibility still plagued not only the Post but American journalism in general.
Yancey may be the most popular and respected author in the so-called evangelical Christian camp; although, Yancey may even have some reservations about being categorized in that camp. His writing is almost always a Biblically reasoned critique of evangelicalism's public faith, as well as the public faith of Christians in general.
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American Media
Columnists
(formerly, Blue
Eagle
Commentary):
http://www.blueagle.com/columnists.htm
Compiled by the university wire service, U-Wire, and offered at USA Today's site, this offers a good sampling of opinions on the nation's big campuses. Now, if somebody would just gather opinions from the nation's smaller campuses.
http://www.opinion-pages.org/"Punditspeak" from The Hill:A place to search for opinions, editorials and commentary in newspapers in Canada, the U.S. and around the world. A good launch pad to world opinions. For years, Monty Kersell (a Canadian) has been gathering editorials and letters to the editor from Web sites around the world. He's got a great search engine, too.
A collection from around the nation of what well-known columnists and commentators are saying about particular issues. The congress-watching online publication doesn't offer a great deal of copy in this feature, but does compile and interesting mix of provocative opinion.
The Abilene (Texas) Reporter News is responsible for compiling this fine stable of religion writers, most of them contributing to the Scripps Howard News Service. Note that this page takes one to the most recent annual archive. One must search the site for current religion columns, which are posted every Saturday.
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