Discover the importance of news columns and how they can help you stay informed, knowledgeable, and ahead in today’s fast-paced world.
Importance of News Column
The importance of the column as an integral part of modern journalism is shown by the prominent position it is given on the front page, the editorial page or the sports page and the devoted following which the various columnists have gained. Intimacy with the reader is promoted The column answers the need for a closer personal contact between the newspaper or magazine and the reader Men 1tgve fewer friends, but we crave for them, and the ‘colyunf is one of the newspapers most effective method of meeting this cry for personal contact.
Don Marquis, who served many years as a newspaper columnist, confirmed this point of view thus
“The colyum’s success, of course, indicates a public preference for direct contact with an individual rather than with the anonymous editorial output of a corporation.”
Readers Interest must be Maintained
While the chief purpose of column is to entertain, this is also true, to lesser degree, of other types i.e. the personal editorial or essay column and the round-about town department When a columnist ceases to entertain and loses his circle of readers, his usefulness to the newspaper or magazine ends
Most Columns have a Serious Purpose Today
This is indicated by Don Marquis’s declaration that;
“A column’s persistent suggestions are frequently more influential, casually and entertainingly presented, than the direct propaganda of the formal editorials in the newspaper”
According to famous columnists C Thompson;
“Tell something the reader which he already knows, but has forgotten, or come to regard as an experience peculiar to himself This tends to show him that his kit is not much different from that of the other. If a columnist can succeed in making his readers realize that we are all the same kind of folk, it ought to make more to learn and less selfish, and therefore happier
The fact is, columnist today particularly news commentators and political analysts have not only a serious function to perform by stimulating public discussion of affairs of the day but also a continuing obligation to measure their facts and comments by commonly accepted ethical standards geared to reality and their consciences.