Do Syndicated Columnists Have a Future?

DrMrLordX writes "With declining circulation numbers looming over the heads of major newspaper publishers, what fate awaits syndicated columnists? I am not syndicated, but I do write for a local independent paper with the ultimate goal of becoming successful (financially and otherwise) as a columnist. Every time I contemplate the possibility of seeking syndication, bleak future newspaper circulation forecasts make me question my own motives. Is it even possible to break into the editorial world with a shrinking reader base? Would it be better to get into socio-political blogging and rely on ad/referral revenues?"

Re:Credibility

[UbuntuDupe]

I'd have to strongly disagree. First of all, in my experience, the intellectual quality of bloggers really puts syndicated columnists to shame. (I'm talking about the upper end of them -- no doubt you can find lots of bad quality.) They can write much more and link to the basis for their claims. If anything is in error, they'll typically have comment and trackback capability so others can instantly expose them. Rarely will columnists deign to defend their assertions. After reading blogs for a few years, I checked back to some of the syndicated columns I had read (this [commondreams.org] is what I had in mind) and just marveled at how intellectually shallow they were. In contrast, check out this list of some of the blogs I read:

http://econlog.econlib.org/ [econlib.org]
http://www.overcomingbias.com/ [overcomingbias.com]
http://www.economist.com/debate/freeexchange/ [economist.com]
http://www.janegalt.net/ [janegalt.net]
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/ [typepad.com]
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
http://patrick.net/wp/ [patrick.net]

Several of those are professors. Now, tell me they're not more refined than the columns you'd read in the paper.