Feature Writing: Writing Personal Columns.
Personal column definition at Dictionary.com, a free online dictionary with pronunciation, synonyms and translation. Look it up now!
My book begins with me explaining to my parking garage attendant —who confesses that he is a blogger— how I write a column, and this is related to the trends I see today. A news story is meant to inform. But a column, an opinion piece, or a blo.
A news column is a journalist's time to connect to the community on a personal level that is not possible with day to day objective news writing. Columns are often written in first person and can contain experiences from the writer's life, or simply the writer's opinion on a topic. Keep a personal tone. This is your time to reach o.
The frustrating thing about securing a regular column is that it can be a case of dead man's shoes (i.e. you have to wait for an existing columnist to move on before an opportunity arises). But once you've built up a relationship with an editor, you can do one of two things (or both).
A natural way to write an opinion piece is to “hook” it to a top story in that day’s paper. But in some cases, you may be writing about a theme that is in all the newspapers. In this case, how you choose which paper to send to really depends on your personal tastes. Don’t worry too much about the ideology of the paper.
The more difficult column is one that you have to write on a regular basis, meet-ing a deadline when you can’t think of anything to write. Before I tried to start a column, I’d just make a list of topics you want to write about, but I strongly urge you to have a local angle and mention local people. Frankly, we have all the political columns.
A personal or personal ad is an item or notice traditionally in the newspaper, similar to a classified advertisement but personal in nature. In British English it is also commonly known as an advert in a lonely hearts column. With its rise in popularity, the World Wide Web has also become a common medium for personals, commonly referred to as online dating.