Rachel Brougham: What a columnist is and is not
I didn’t grow up thinking I wanted to be a newspaper columnist. I knew from a young age I’d be a writer and even as a child I was a bit of a news junkie, but writing an opinion piece in this paper every week for the past 12 years was never a square on my career bingo card.
Yet, being a columnist has become a passion of mine. Journalism as a profession, which includes columnists, certainly isn’t for everybody as it generally doesn’t pay all that well, journalists work long hours and job security can be scarce. It’s never an easy job.
Plus, in recent years attacks on journalists and the profession itself have taken a whole new turn. We realize that many of you think those of us who work in the world of journalism are unfair, biased and lazy. Yes, we read your emails, your letters and your social media comments. Sometimes you go out of your way to look up our home address and send us letters there. One time my editor received an envelope addressed to him at the office and when he opened it, he found a strand of hair. I was once threatened via voicemails to the extent that I had to alert my son’s school out of concern for his safety and have a chat with police.
Stories of this type of behavior directed at journalists are a dime a dozen. Yet we keep doing the work because we know having a free press and holding people and institutions accountable is important.
Thursday, April 18, is National Columnist Day. And in this era of so-called fake news and biased reporting, there seems to be some confusion as to what exactly a columnist is and what a columnist is not.
Columnists can be funny, they can be serious and even depressing. Sometimes we may inspire you or irritate you. Some columnists may connect with readers after so many years that they seem like an old friend.
Reporters and editors do the hard work. They are the ones who root out the facts and report the news. But columnists are the ones who can often tell those stories through a different lens. They can offer fresh perspectives on big stories or tell the tale of a story that’s being overlooked. Columnists can influence community dialogue, shed light or tell stories through a personal angle and even change opinions. These aren’t articles, these are columns.
Columnists help us digest stories that impact out lives, give us context and help us form our own viewpoint. Columnists may anger us or help reinforce our own positions, but when it comes down to it, columnists work to make us think.
A newspaper’s opinion page, which includes columnists like me, various editorials, letters to the editor and cartoons is not the same as the news page. Pieces on the opinion page are just that — opinion — and don’t necessarily reflect the thoughts and opinions of the entire newspaper.
As we move toward National Columnist Day on Monday, April 18, let’s remember the role of a columnists. Columnists are tasked with carrying a heavy load of responsibility to help readers scrutinize issues that may affect them, their community and their country and thus enhance public discourse. You don’t have to agree with what they say, after all, we all have opinions.
But remember: Columnists and those who work in the world of journalism are people, too. You can disagree, but threats of violence should have no place here.
No matter how you may feel about a certain column, columnists are people who are just doing the best they can. And without them, this world would be a much darker place.
— Rachel Brougham is the former editor of the Petoskey News-Review. You can email her at racheldbrougham@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Rachel Brougham: What a columnist is and is not
