A columnist is a person who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions.

Columns A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression membe ...

appear in

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...

s, magazines and other publications, including

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

s. They take the form of a short essay by a specific writer who offers a personal point of view. In some instances, a column has been written by a composite or a team, appearing under a pseudonym, or (in effect) a brand name. Some columnists appear on a daily or weekly basis and later reprint the same material in book collections.

Radio and television

Newspaper columnists of the 1930s and 1940s, such as

Franklin Pierce Adams Franklin Pierce Adams (November 15, 1881 – March 23, 1960) was an American columnist known as Franklin P. Adams and by his initials F.P.A.. Famed for his wit, he is best known for his newspaper column, "The Conning Tower", and his appearances a ...

(also known as FPA), Nick Kenny, John Crosby, Jimmie Fidler,

Louella Parsons Louella Parsons (born Louella Rose Oettinger; August 6, 1881 – December 9, 1972) was an American movie columnist and a screenwriter. She was retained by William Randolph Hearst because she had championed Hearst's mistress Marion Davies and s ...

, Drew Pearson,

Ed Sullivan Edward Vincent Sullivan (September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974) was an American television personality, impresario, sports and entertainment reporter, and syndicated columnist for the ''New York Daily News'' and the Chicago Tribune New Yor ...

and

Walter Winchell Walter Winchell (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) was a syndicated American newspaper gossip columnist and radio news commentator. Originally a vaudeville performer, Winchell began his newspaper career as a Broadway reporter, critic and co ...

, achieved a celebrity status and used their syndicated columns as a springboard to move into radio and television. In some cases, such as Winchell and Parsons, their radio programs were quite similar in format to their newspaper columns.

Rona Barrett Rona Barrett (born Rona Burstein, October 8, 1936) is an American gossip columnist and businesswoman. She runs the Rona Barrett Foundation, a non-profit organization in Santa Ynez, California, dedicated to the aid and support of senior citizens ...

began as a Hollywood gossip columnist in 1957, duplicating her print tactics on television by the mid-1960s. One of the more famous syndicated columnists of the 1920s and 1930s,

O. O. McIntyre Oscar Odd McIntyre (February 18, 1884 – February 14, 1938) was a New York newspaper columnist of the 1920s and 1930s. ''The Washington Post'' once described his column as "the letter from New York read by millions because it never lost the hu ...

, declined offers to do a radio series because he felt it would interfere and diminish the quality of writing in his column, "New York Day by Day."

Books

Franklin Pierce Adams and O. O. McIntyre both collected their columns into a series of books, as did other columnists. McIntyre's book, ''The Big Town: New York Day by Day'' (1935) was a bestseller. Adams' ''The Melancholy Lute'' (1936) is a collection of selections from three decades of his columns. H. Allen Smith's first humor book, ''Low Man on a Totem Pole'' (1941), and his two following books, were so popular during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

that they kept Smith on the ''New York Herald Tribunes Best Seller List for 100 weeks and prompted a collection of all three in ''3 Smiths in the Wind'' (1946). When Smith's column, ''The Totem Pole'', was syndicated by United Features, he told ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'':

Just between you and me, it's tough. A typewriter can be a pretty formidable contraption when you sit down in front of it and say: "All right, now I'm going to be funny."

The writing of French humor columnist Alain Rémond has been collected in books. ''

The Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of Downtown Miami.Dave Barry with this description: "Dave Barry has been at ''The Miami Herald'' since 1983. A Pulitzer Prize winner for commentary, he writes about issues ranging from the international economy to exploding toilets." Barry has collected his columns into a series of successful books. He stopped writing his nationally syndicated weekly column in 2005, and the ''Miami Herald'' now offers on its website a lengthy selection of past columns by Barry. In 1950, '' Editor & Publisher'' looked back at the newspaper columnists of the 1920s:

"Feature service of various sorts is new," Hallam Walker Davis wrote in a book, ''The Column'', which was published in 1926. "It has had the advantage of high-powered promotion. It is still riding on the crest of the first big wave its own splash sent out." But Mr. Davis did think that in a decade or two the newspapers might be promoting their columns along with their comic strips. ''The World'' had started the ball rolling with billboard advertising of Heywood Broun's "It Seems to Me." The McNaught Syndicate was sitting pretty with O. O. McIntyre, Will Rogers and Irvin S. Cobb on its list. ''The New York Herald Tribune'' offered Don Marquis and Franklin P. Adams rhymed satirically in "The Conning Tower" for the New York World Syndicate. "A Line o' Type or Two", Bert Leston Taylor's verse column in the ''Chicago Tribune'', was now being done by Richard Henry Little. Other offerings: humorous sketches by
Damon Runyon Alfred Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880 – December 10, 1946) was an American newspaperman and short-story writer. He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To N ...
; O. Henry stories; editorials by Arthur Brisbane;
Ring Lardner Ringgold Wilmer Lardner (March 6, 1885 – September 25, 1933) was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical writings on sports, marriage, and the theatre. His contemporaries Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Wo ...
letter; "Rippling Rhymes", by Walt Mason; literary articles by
H. L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...
.

Newspaper and magazine

In certain instances, a column can prove so popular it becomes the basis for an expansion into an entire magazine. For instance, when Cyrus Curtis founded the ''Tribune and Farmer'' in 1879, it was a four-page weekly with an annual subscription rate of 50 cents. He introduced a women's column by his wife, Louise Knapp Curtis, and it proved so popular that in 1883, he decided to publish it as a separate monthly supplement, ''Ladies Journal and Practical Housekeeper'', edited by Louise Curtis. With 25,000 subscribers by the end of its first year, it was such a success that Curtis sold ''Tribune and Farmer'' to put his energy into the new publication, which became the '' Ladies' Home Journal''. Pop culturally, the profession of 'columnist' has been seen as a glamorous one and often featured as the career of choice for characters such as Carrie Bradshaw in

Sex and the City ''Sex and the City'' is an American romantic comedy-drama television series created by Darren Star for HBO. An adaptation of Candace Bushnell's newspaper column and 1996 book anthology of the same name, the series premiered in the United Stat ...

, Rory Gilmore in

Gilmore Girls ''Gilmore Girls'' is an American Comedy drama, comedy-drama television series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino and starring Lauren Graham (Lorelai Gilmore) and Alexis Bledel (Rory Gilmore). The show debuted on October 5, 2000, on The WB and beca ...

, Andie Anderson in

How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days ''How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days'' is a 2003 romantic comedy film directed by Donald Petrie, starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey. It is based on the picture book of the same name by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long. The book has no narrat ...

and dozens of others.

Types

Advice column An advice column is a column in a question and answer format. Typically, a (usually anonymous) reader writes to the media outlet with a problem in the form of a question, and the media outlet provides an answer or response. The responses are wr ...

ist * Critic * Editorial opinion columnist * Gossip columnist * Humor columnist * Food columnist

References

External links