Do columnists write their own columns?

October 17, 2011 8:07 PM

Do columnists write their own columns?
posted by Jagz-Mario to Writing & Language (15 answers total)

Some of them do, some of them do not.
posted by mr_roboto at 8:09 PM on October 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

What medium? All the Newspaper columnists I know write their own stuff. Magazines I have much less experience, but again, all the ones I know do.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:24 PM on October 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

A decade ago I worked at the LA Times and every columnist I knew personally wrote their own columns. I can speak for three sections. I worked for a smaller (but not small) paper before that and know every columnist wrote their own columns. Same for a couple of pretty large magazines I was connected to.

I would imagine there are a few columnists who don't, but I've never met one. Though maybe that's changed in a decade.
posted by crankyrogalsky at 8:28 PM on October 17, 2011

It depends what you mean by 'columnist'.

Celebrity columns are sometimes ghosted, in that there'll be a conversation with a staff writer that gets distilled into a column: this is especially the case in sports pages. Other celebrity columns may be filed by the person in question, but may be heavily subbed into house style: I know of someone on an overnight newspaper desk who had to produce a column from a somewhat incoherent string of words emailed by a relatively famous person in a tired and emotional state.

One-off op-eds bylined to notables -- e.g. a film star writing to highlight a charitable mission, or a pop star lobbying for enhanced copyright terms -- are usually produced by the groups being highlighted, but will receive sign-off from the ostensible 'author'.
posted by holgate at 8:41 PM on October 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Well, this isn't the most specific question ever, but certain advice columns like "Dear Abby" or "Ann Landers" have become sort of franchises after the original author passes away or retires.
posted by drjimmy11 at 8:42 PM on October 17, 2011

No, the person who writes all my comments here also writes some columns.

Honestly though, in Australia almost every opinion columnist writes their own, although I've heard an odd story of two columnists periodically writing each other's columns for the amusement value, emulating each other and seeing if anyone notices, which they don't.
posted by sien at 8:57 PM on October 17, 2011

A columnist is generally expected to write the column and sign off on the final copy, but the use of "legmen" who do much of the actual reporting has been a long-standing practice. See here for some controversy about Andrew Sullivan and some general background.
posted by Jahaza at 9:38 PM on October 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I work for a chain of 17 local newspapers; everything we print is written by the person who's byline is on it. In the twenty years I've been here, there's only been one case otherwise, and the dude was fired EXTREMELY rapidly (for plagarism, though).
posted by easily confused at 2:37 AM on October 18, 2011

To echo holgate's note, look for something like "Dave Famous was speaking to Jim Smith" in or around the column for the phoned-in ones. My favorite car magazine has three ghosted columns like this...this isn't to say the celebrities didn't espouse the opinions, but they also don't seem to have written the words.
posted by maxwelton at 3:59 AM on October 18, 2011

Hard to tell from your question, but you may be interested in reading about Maureen Dowd's plagiarism scandal. (Not vouching for that link in particular, but it'll get you started reading about the topic.)

I can confirm holgate's point that one off op-eds are sometimes not written by the notable person to whom they are attributed. Here's an example of a one off op-ed. I have no knowledge of the authorship of this one.
posted by Xalf at 4:47 AM on October 18, 2011

They almost all write their own columns. The good ones certainly do: I know a couple of syndicated political columnists pretty well and have seen them at work! Although I have heard credible rumors that one conservative columnist -- initials G W -- has a stable of twentysomethings on which he is heavily reliant.

However, if you're talking about elected officials -- e.g., this week's report on Congress from Congressman Joe Blow -- typically staffers write them.
posted by Mr. Justice at 5:26 AM on October 18, 2011

Oh, and in the world of public affairs, the following transaction regrettably approaches the routine: "Hi, Semi-Famous Expert, I am Public Relations Fixer. I wrote this column for you. If you will sign it, I will pay you $1,000 and get it published in a newspaper."
posted by Mr. Justice at 5:28 AM on October 18, 2011

Unless there is some scandal waiting to happen, yes, for the most part, they do. The bigger names very likely have people working for them who do lots of legwork. At some point, it is like having a speechwriter. The speaker ostensibly signs off on the content, but just employs someone to do the nuts and bolts of putting the words in the right order.
posted by gjc at 7:01 AM on October 18, 2011

You need to divide "columnists" into different categories. For example, the typical sports page columnist writes his own stuff. "Celebrity television pundits" like Arianna Huffington or James Carville almost never write their own material without any help or assistance. Then you get into columnists that may be celebrities, but retain a print focus, like George Will or David Brooks. These guys have research staff that free them up for the television appearances, speaking engagements and book projects, but still take the lead when putting the column together.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:51 AM on October 18, 2011

I can think of at least one high profile politcal columnist who did not, in fact, write what appeared under the byline. That was more than 10 years ago and I believe the columnist had done the writing for most of the byline's life.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 12:11 PM on October 20, 2011