Posted on 08/14/2006 11:38:55 AM PDT by abb
NEW YORK John Leo is ending his newspaper opinion column after 18 years. In a Sunday farewell piece, he wrote that "it's time to work on other projects, including a book."
Leo began the column for U.S. News & World Report in Sept. 1988. He signed with Universal Press Syndicate three years later.
"Now that I'm leaving, I should acknowledge that writing a column has to be one of the best jobs in the world," Leo wrote. "At a cost of only 750 words per week (with an occasional surcharge of sweating a bullet or two on deadline), you get to join what my friend and fellow columnist Richard Reeves calls 'the conversation.' He means the national dialogue, or whatever part of it you can shoulder your way into by being pertinent, witty, original, or whatever other trait induces people to read you."
He added: "As I've written elsewhere, columnists have to decide how they want to sound. Various famous ones have chosen to come across as combative, debonair, erudite, or incredibly well-connected. I've tried to sound conversational, as if I were talking to a friend about a subject that interests us both. And if something funny occurs to me, I throw that in too, just as most of us do in ordinary conversation.
"The problem is that the tone may be conversational, but we are still talking about a one-way monologue. This is one reason why columnists seem to be losing out to Internet commentators. Comment on the Net isn't just quicker and cost-free. Immediate feedback, still mostly in the 'Gotcha!' phase, allows real conversation that anyone can join, as well as a sense that all speakers are equal. The whole model of anointed commentators talking down to mostly passive readers has crumbled. If column-writing were a stock, I would sell now."
Leo, who praised Universal in the final column, said he'll be setting up a Web site at JohnLeo.com.
Ping
Well, there ends the last reason to read any of the three newsmags.
I can't wait for the day when Mo Dowd is just another poster on DU.
The despicable Dowd is almost there now thanks to NYT policy. LOL
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, John.
What we're witnessing here is a complete elimination of all the lines that used to define people in the past. Politicians are no more competent than the people who elect them, law enforcement officials are no more law-abiding than the citizens they shake down on a daily basis, and people in the media are no more relevant to the public discussion about important issues than Ronald McDonald is.
... wait 24 business hours ...
Is there nobody you can admire, respect, and yield to?
Sure. But things were never the same after Junior Johnson retired.
I've been a subscriber to USNWR since the late 70's. John Leo was probably the best...
I still miss Al Capp.
One of the good guys IMHO.
The very first news magazine I subscribed to when I was 11 years old in 1961 was USNWR. They were talking about the "missle gap" then. I've been a news junkie ever since...
I must've been reading him when he was local or something. I could've sworn that I was reading him in college, which would've been prior to 86. Maybe I'm misremembering.
John Leo's columns run in many small newspapers including the local paper here at the Lake of the Ozarks. The editors run his piece across from the week's selected screeching harpie Liberal.
Somehow I suspect there will always be a place for men like John Leo. His voice is not just that of a friend, it's of a trusted partner. He'll be missed.
Who's Mo Dowd?
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.
.
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I know who Mo Dowd is. ;)
You've obviously never read his columns.
Sure, you talk tough. Probably just cover for the fact you can’t wait for the day when she bears your love child and whispers all her wisdom directly in your ear..
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