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?"

In a word, no

[Jerf]

Econ 101. Supply and demand. Supply of pundits is rising dramatically. Despite all the kids who think they are cool posting on Slashdot about how bad blogs are, enough of them are good that the supply of good pundits is also rising dramatically.

I honestly don't see how the economic value of punditry is going to end up at anywhere other than $0 in the very near future; supply is skyrocketing, demand is constrained by the amount of time people have to consume things (punditry is ultimately competing for entertainment time). Paid columnists are the only exception, and I daresay the demand for that is sinking much faster than the supply is also sinking.

Even if there are a few superstars who get paid something (maybe not even a lot), in the future the way those superstars will be discovered is after they spend time working for nothing to prove they have the goods. Imagine something like the way sports works; you do a lot of unpaid work before you get one of the precious few multi-million dollar slots. It'll be like that, except without the multi-million dollar contracts.

If you love writing... write! But don't expect to make any money as a columnist, and expect to lose your job sooner rather than later. Maybe you should just write as a hobby and find another way to make money; being a good writer can get your foot in a lot of doors and make you stand out in a world of people who write like idiots.

If you go forward with this, I think you need to go in with an awareness that you are basically playing the lottery; even if you're very, very good, it's still going to take a healthy dollop of luck to "make it".

Re:Credibility

[Ksempac]

I dont agree, i remember a French blog during the vote for the European Constitution. The webmaster was absolutely unknown before this. However, he found and posted a lot of documentations about the Constitution, some personnal thoughts about them, and managed to attract others people who wanted to discuss about this. Soon, the blog became really popular, and got some attention by news websites and newspapers.
Many people felt that the vote for the Constitution was fishy, because they knew nothing about the Constitution they were supposed to vote for. The blog was an answer to that problem, so people liked it.
This proves that if you can bring something new and interesting to your readers, they will follow you, no matter who you are. You dont get credibility by working in a well-known newspaper, you get credibility by writing interesting/insightful articles.

Revenue streams

[meta-monkey]

Columnists make money in more ways than just getting paid by newspapers for their columns. They also write books and give speeches. You might want to try writing a column, publishing it freely online and distributing it to as many pundit sites (like Townhall.com, etc) as possible, and using that to drive traffic to your website. You can sell advertising on your website, but more importantly, you can get famous. Once everybody knows who you are, write books based on the topics you cover in your columns, and sell those. Also develop speeches about your topics, and advertise those to universities, corporations, and politicians.

Also, hats and t-shirts!

Just a thought.

Re:In a word, no

[Jerf]

You are assuming that there exists no way to filter the signal out of the noise. The evidence is not on your side. You're posting on one of the "ways to filter the signal from the noise", and it's not even one of the better filters right now. (Slashdot survives now as community, not as filter.)

Plus the system tends to self organize. How many crappy blog posts have you read in the past week? There may be millions of crap blogs, but you already never see them. By and large you only see what rises to the top. The current behavior of the system is not that of a system with no filtering. It's just the filtering doesn't look like what you are used to.

I see every reason to believe that we may pay for skilled people to pull even higher-quality signals out of the noise. I also see every reason to believe that is not going to take the form of an anointed (by journalism degree) priesthood that fully controls massive print infrastructures and dictates what stories are and are not valid, and what slants on the stories are and are not valid. Centralizing the filtering functions is as stupid as trying to centralize the economy.

The fact that journalism-as-we-know is a really, really, unspeakably, incredibly bad filter is only going to accelerate this process. Journalism talks a pretty talk about verifying sources and getting multiple angles and being "fair" but I see absolutely no reason beyond the pretty rhetoric to believe it is doing any of those things. Rather, it is a money-making enterprise that specializes in producing advertising space. If you can explain to me where the journalistic principles actually fit into that, with actual evidence, I'm all ears. Or explain to me how it isn't primarily a money-making enterprise.

(Note I don't really have a problem with it being a money-making enterprise. I have a problem when it presents itself as anything else.)

But even if we pay for filtering, we're only going to be paying for the filtering; the actual "signal" will be a commodity, because there will still be so damn much of it. Getting back to the original question: Is there a future in providing signal? Almost (but not quite) certainly not.

The endgame is that "blogging" and "the current media" will eventually merge until you can't tell the two apart anymore. We're already starting to see that, really. It's only a matter of time before CNN simply runs a "blog post" with light editing; already there have been stories that amount to little more than covering a blog post or set of blog posts, with the only difference being that CNN is about a week late to the party, they tend to "forget" to link to the primary sources, and they get all angsty about the bloggers.

Why not both?

[RancidPickle]

Why do you think that only one path is available?

Use both. The more you write, the better you'll be. You can always use a pen name for the blog if you're really concerned about getting labeled as an amateur by the big rags. Keep up with the local media, work up to a major market. Hell, why not take three paths and toss in a YouTube presence. Since a large part of your field is luck, having three tickets to the big game gives you an advantage, especially when the dead tree rags start to 'get' the electronic age. You'll be ahead of the pack.

By the by, don't get in the field for the money -- it's like being a teacher. No money, but the job satisfaction goes a long way. Good luck/break a leg and all that.

Newspapers

[Rinisari]

As long as print newspapers exist, so too will syndicated columnists. When the columnists' syndicate decides to stop selling to print newspapers, the columnists will continue to write. It's not up to them where they are published—that responsibility lays with the syndicate.

Should a syndicate feel that a columnist's views are no longer needed by the syndicate, the columnist will do what every one else can do: start a blog, and perhaps use his or her last column as an advertisement for the blog.

Short plug for an awesome political columnist: Charley Reese [wikipedia.org]. Don't mind his political affiliations—his views aren't unique to any single party.

Re:Credibility

[KevinIsOwn]

While I would absolutely say there are more good examples of credible bloggers like this one, there are undoubtedly many who aren't credible. But there is also the problem of continuing credibility. Once this person is in the limelight and people are listening, what happens if something is posted that isn't credible? (but people don't know until later, or at all). There is no oversight, no editor and fact checkers confirming the posts.

Lastly, your point that "You dont get credibility by working in a well-known newspaper, you get credibility by writing interesting/insightful articles." isn't true. In fact, one possible future of blogging is visible now on the New York Time's editorial page- blogs that are posted there under the NY Times name. The Times is saying they are verifying that these people are ones you can trust. Credibility definitely comes with being in a well-known newspaper, and not interesting/insightful articles. You really should have said: "You dont get readership by working in a well-known newspaper, you get readership by writing interesting/insightful articles."

Yes, I hope you have a syndicated future

[deltacephei]

Syndicated columnists have editors, deadlines, real jobs. Socio-political bloggers, on average, are snarky, self-righteous and pretentious. I sincerely hope you will stick it with it. I subscribe to two print papers and read a number of online ones. The professional offerings of syndicated columnists, again on average, are of superior quality to any blog offerings. Perhaps I haven't read the right political blogs. Perhaps I don't care anymore - they all seem to suffer this insidious, ridiculous in your face quality of the Nauseating Cheerleader Class President. Careful analysis and research count a lot more than reactive jabs - a blog by its very nature is resistive to the former and predisposed to the latter.

Another option altogether is simply to pursue both, and wait 'til a fork in your road forces you to choose one over the other.