Here’s an unusual topic for a newspaper column: newspaper columns.
Opinion pieces give a newspaper character. Indeed, opinions are as valuable as the actual news. People are curious about what other people think, and seeing an issue explained and dissected helps them decide their own point of view.
Let’s start with what a columnist might write about.
There are two types of news stories. The first is “hard news”. Ukraine is the hardest news of the moment, but it’s difficult to write an opinion piece that finds a new angle. The world is united in condemnation, what use is further condemnation?
Similarly, we share worries about the cost of living. We hate violent crime, despise child cruelty, and abhor cheats. Finding a way to make readers say: “I hadn’t thought of it like that” isn’t easy.
Hard news opinions should aim at the most elusive target in journalism: originality.
Then a well-structured article should reach a conclusion, not limply list further questions.
The second type of story is soft news: things you don’t die from. Partygate, gender identity, today’s Dundee derby, semicolon usage. These topics provoke divergent, and often interesting, points of view. They are easier to write about.
A good example was Will Smith’s Oscars tomfoolery.
Some insisted Chris Rock deserved a slap for his crass mockery. Others were scathing about all violence. There was fall-out about alopecia. There were sorry tales about apologies and who should make them.
Columnists flock to this sort of story like vultures, and pick over the carcase with gluttony and glee. There are as many “angles” are there are writers.
But what to talk about in a slow news week? Oh the angst, self-doubt, and pain of topic selection! Columnists strive to find an issue that is interesting and unusual, yet strikes a chord with readers. Some charlatans resort to nonsense like writing a column about columns.
Once a subject is decided upon they might salt it with a few grains of controversy, add a twist of outrage, or hurl jagged jibes. This isn’t difficult, the difficulty is judging when to do it.
A good writer also wields a pithy turn of phrase. They must be wordsmiths. They know how to weave in the flowers of rhetoric, the tricks of comedy, and gut-punches of pathos.
Best of all is to find an ongoing theme. I have it easy: I carp about bad English usage. I groan about grammar, point out punctuation problems, and mump about mixed metaphors. Sometimes I mention apostrophes.
I’m persistently a pedantic pain in the neck. That, I hope, is why you read this particular column.
Word of the week
Fashed (adjective)
Bothered, inconvenienced. EG: “Anyone fashed by that lad Finan’s scribblings needs to get some perspective on their life.”
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
