The National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC) Board of Directors is pleased to announce the launch of the 2025 Annual Columnist Contest. The contest will officially kick off on January 15 and run through April 15, 2025. To enter the contest, click go to https://nsnc.submittable.com/submit
The National Society of Newspaper Columnists Education Foundation is a tax-exempt charitable organization [501(c)3] devoted to the education and training of new and experienced columnists everywhere. Donate here: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/NSNCEdFnd
We are excited for What’s in-store for NSNC members this year. We just launched the 2025 NSNC Annual Columnist Contest, so you’ll want to be sure your membership is up-to-date. Also, if you have ideas, suggestions, etc., please share them with our President Meredith Cummings at meredithcummings@gmail.com or Executive Director Ginny McCabe at nsncdirector@gmail.com. Thank you for your support of NSNC!
By Bill Tammeus For a newspaper-related blog to be effective, it must give readers something useful they can’t get elsewhere and it must do that consistently. So it can’t be just another column full of words. Rather, it must offer links to related Web sites, helpful graphics, an opportunity to correspond with the blogger and…
By Samantha Bennett NSNC President I don’t mean to frighten you, but I’m also sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t know: This is a weird and scary time to be a columnist. Almost every week, it seems, another newspaper announces layoffs or buyouts. Polls show the public doesn’t trust us or…
By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram Columnist www.yankeecowboy.com My first journalistic mentor was noted writer H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger. While in high school, I read his columns in the University of Pennsylvania student newspaper and decided I wanted to be like him. I enrolled at Penn, and in my first week as a freshman…
Samantha Bennett Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Hello, NSNC. I’m Samantha Bennett, and I write a weekly humor column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Having been your membership chair and vice president, I’m now your president for the next two years. I ran on the strength of my cartwheeling prowess — but let me tell you a little more…
Smiley Anders The Advocate, Baton Rouge It takes a lot to shut up a bunch of columnists. These are people used to expressing their opinions forcefully – and often. On Saturday I was in a bus full of them, and they were finally at a loss for words. At the 32nd annual conference of the…
I was going to write about our upcoming conference in New Orleans, or how I’ve spent the week doing stuff like recording podcasts and scripting Web videos and producing parody ads. But I can’t. Not right now. My friend Jim Hubley died. He had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor just a few days…
NSNC Annual Columnist ContestDeadline Extended Until May 2 Words you probably never hear from your editor: Deadline extended! You can count on NSNC for a lot of things. State-of-industry knowledge. Writing clinics. Good friends. Count our “contest deadline extensions” among those. This year we’re extending the deadline to Friday, May 2. Categories include humor, sports,…
Happy National Columnists’ Day and Ernie Pyle Remembrance Day! We celebrate on April 18 to honor the accomplishments of Ernie Pyle and all of those who are dedicated to column-writing today. The National Society of Newspaper Columnists, founded in 1977, created National Columnists’ Day to be celebrated each year on April 18, in memory of…
Suzette Standring is now the Chief Correspondent for Firefighters Vs Cancer, http://www.firefightersvscancer.org, a website that promotes early cancer detection for firefighters, who have a significantly higher risk of occupational cancer. Suzette will share their stories, and the website also has a purchase link for OneTest early cancer screening kits available to the public. She also…
Sunshine Week occurs each year in mid-March, coinciding with James Madison’s birthday, March 16 (1751). Madison was a driving force behind the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and presented the first version of the Bill of Rights to Congress. He also was the fourth president of the United States. Coordinated by the nonpartisan Joseph L. Brechner Freedom…
Jerry Zezima Celebrates 40 Years of His Syndicated Humor Column! This marks the 40th anniversary of my syndicated humor column, which is distributed to 600 newspapers nationwide and abroad by Tribune News Service. I began writing my column in 1985 at my hometown paper, the Stamford (Conn.) Advocate, which still runs it. I write humor…
