They know that the column resonates in the community. They know that people like it, and yet they don't have room for one column once week that consistently got it right.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
A good column is one that sells paper. It doesn't matter how beautifully it is written and how much you admire the author... if it doesn't sell any papers, it's not a good column. It's a terrible yardstick to use, but in the newspaper business, that's the whole thing.
I used to write a monthly column for the 'New York Times' syndicate. But I stopped because I found it really hard to have one extreme opinion a month. I don't know how these columnists have two or three ideas a week; I was having difficulty having 12 things to say a year.
Now I'm instantly nervous about the demands of doing a weekly column.
It's kind of hard to spend long hours trying to help people and then find out that the favorite game of the columnist is to sit back and second guess you and try to find something that you did wrong.
If producing a regular column is living out loud, then keeping a daily blog is living at the top of your lungs. For a couple of months there, I was shrieking like a banshee.
It's easy to write a good column if you've got good information. It's hard if you have to depend on style alone. I suppose there are people who can get away with styling on a regular basis. I'm not one of them. You're probably not, either.
Whether my columns are worth reading isn't for me to say.
Newspaper readership is declining like crazy. In fact, there's a good chance that nobody is reading my column.
Those who write the editorials and those who write the columns, they simply are unaccountable. They're free to impose their cultural politics in the name of freedom of the press.
Column writing is like gas - it fills the available space.