By Ben S. Pollock President, National Society of Newspaper Columnists Your president is looking out for your welfare. Thank me later. Tracy Beckerman, chairman of the Social Media Committee, although an NSNC member for several years, still is trying to figure us out. Just before Labor Day, the new board member e-mailed me: “I would…
The Room in the Elephant By Ben S. Pollock President National Society of Newspaper Columnists The board of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists has been cleaning up after the party in Detroit. While washing glasses and emptying the trash, we share the usual mix of gleeful recollection of anecdotes and recriminations about disasters that…
President’s Message By Ben S. Pollock President, National Society of Newspaper Columnists Instead of polishing this column, I should have been sewing nametags into my clothes and shaking out my sleeping bag for WordCamp. If I showed up with that stuff, even the geeks there would laugh. We’re all geeks at WordCamp, www.wordcamp.org. The…
you, the columnist By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram Columnist www.YankeeCowboy.com Nice publicity hit on the top-15-columns-of-all-time survey at the NSNC conference. Book researcher polls our membership. Results make news. Thanks to Newsweek-The Daily Beast senior political columnist John Avlon for asking us to help him do research for his new book, Deadline…
Larry Cohen It was the author G.K. Chesterton who explained that “journalism largely consists in saying ‘Lord Jones is Dead’ to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.” I chose to assume that Chesterton was writing about the “news” side of the business. Much of the columnist business is devoted to explaining…
Jennifer Grant asked her NSNC friends to give their opinions regarding a book trailer created by a friend at loudtoast.com for her upcoming novel “Love You More” published by Thomas Nelson Pub. and available August 2011 . Following the invisible thread of connection between people who are seemingly intended to become family, journalist Jennifer Grant shares the deeply…
DETROIT, Saturday June 25, 2011 — Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times for the second straight year was named best online columnist/blogger, large website, by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. The 2011 winners of the annual contest, for work originally published during 2010, were announced at Saturday’s concluding dinner banquet of the NSNC’s 35th…
The Oath of Office For NSNC officers. It’s optional, if we remember to conduct it. Either hand can go on a bound column collection (an Ernie Pyle book works) and the other hand upraised, holding a pen or quill I, (name), do soberly swear, To advocate for the craft of columns, in the field of…
Below are links to articles in the top media about the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ 2011 conference or the 2011 column contest. The list will be updated. In a few days, another list will be begun with links to columns and blogs written by conferees themselves. Conference National Society of Newspaper Columnists Coming Here…
Roger Ebert, recipient of the 2011 Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists DETROIT, Saturday, June 25, 2011 — Following is the acceptance speech of Roger Ebert for the Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award. Ebert’s physical condition prevented him from accepting in person, but he “spoke” live via Skype from…
A full and busy day of conference activities concluded Saturday night with the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement award to Roger Ebert, who appeared live from Chicago via Skype. The NSNC Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award is given yearly to honor a columnist who exemplifies outstanding achievement. It is the NSNC organization’s highest honor. Roger…
DETROIT, Saturday, June 25, 2011 – “The Body Politic” is the winner of the 2011 Sitting Duck Award of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. “Our public servants have been abusing their franking privilege,” said Ben S. Pollock, president of the NSNC, which gives this award annually to an easy target for columnists on a…
DETROIT, Saturday, June 25, 2011 — In a survey of columnists nationwide, the top American column in history was typed up by the late, great Ernie Pyle. Pyle’s “The Death of Captain Waskow” first was published Jan. 10, 1944, by his syndicate, Scripps Howard. John Avlon, senior political columnist for Newsweek-The Daily Beast, created the…
Dossion Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle was the site of Friday night dinner sponsored by Ford Motor Company for attendees of the 35th Annual Conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. The Legacy Award was presented posthumously to Mike Harden of the Columbus Dispatch for his excellence as a columnist and many years…
By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram Columnist www.YankeeCowboy.com I’m celebrating 20 years of NSNC membership. I got what I put into it. Great friends, more learning about column writing than anywhere else combined, an actual columnist job (hired while attending my first conference, no less), a lengthy career of growth and improvement, and, yes, worth…
Luellen Smiley, NSNC member, is the daughter of reputed mobster, Allen Smiley, who was a close friend and confidant of famous Las Vegas mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and was just feet away from Siegel the night he was murdered. She has been a columnist since 2004 when she began writing a weekly column in San Diego called “Smiley’s Dice.”…
It’s that time we’ve been awaiting all year: The results of the NSNC column-writing contest have been determined. The judges have pored over the entries (they may have poured over them, too, when the judging went late into the night, but if nothing spilled on the entries, we don’t ask about such things and they…
