Columnists Learn the Joy of E-mail

By: Dave Astor When national Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC) members met in New Orleans in June, informal conversation periodically focused on the "Big Easy" ? also known as e-mail. The consensus was that e-mail has mostly helped their craft, and E&P later interviewed a dozen columnists to find out why.

"E-mail lets you know when you've succeeded in writing a column that speaks to your readers ? and lets you know the day it appeared," said Mark Lane of the Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal and Cox News Service. "You can't help but benefit from that. Plus, it helps me find out which columns have been picked up by other papers. This gives me a better idea of what editors are looking for."

Joe Blundo of The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch said: "It's great to get e-mail, even the negative kind. It tells me people are reading." Bob Welch of The Register-Guard in Eugene, Ore., said e-mail helps him "stay in closer touch" with readers.

"E-mail has changed my column in that much more information seems to come my way, " added Dan Bernstein of The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif.

Mike Argento of the York (Pa.) Daily Record said e-mail has advantages over phone calls. "I always seem to get calls in the middle of writing a column. It throws me off," said the NSNC vice president.

"E-mail doesn't have to be dealt with immediately, as a call does," said Samantha Bennett of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "And e-mail can't be sent entirely anonymously, which keeps people from being too irresponsible. If they insult me, I can always hit 'reply' and take them to task." Mike Deupree of The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, also prefers e-mail over calls because "it provides both the reader and me time to get our thoughts straight."

Environmental concerns are among the reasons another columnist likes e-mail. "No trees die because of it," said Carol Mueller, a managing editor at the Pioneer Press chain of weekly papers in Chicago's suburbs.

Others praise the exposure the electronic realm can bring. "I built my readership through e-mail. If it hadn't been for that technology, I would not exist in the printed world," said W. Bruce Cameron, the 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter author who launched his column online in 1995 and started also writing for newspapers in 1998. Cameron is now distributed by Creators Syndicate.

E-mail has a downside, too. Post-Gazette columnist/associate editor Tony Norman, while praising e-mail's "instant feedback," said receiving many messages can be very distracting ? especially on deadline days.

Mueller said Monday mornings are particularly heavy, as "a weekend's worth of messages wash over your screen like a series of tidal waves." She added: "Not all readers have e-mail, especially the older ones, and tend to feel left out."

Interviewees ? whose e-mail addresses are usually listed with their columns ? said they spend anywhere from one to 35 hours a week reading and answering e-mail.

Self-syndicated "Suddenly Senior" columnist Frank Kaiser is at the 35-hour end of the spectrum. "I get between 120 and 200 personal e-mails daily from readers," he said, with about a third relating to a column and most of the rest seeking advice. There's also the occasional marriage proposal.

While happy that so many people are interested enough to send e-mails, said Kaiser, "I hardly have time to write my column."

The number of e-mails other columnists receive ranges from a handful to more than a thousand a week.

Norman noted that pieces about race, the Iraq war, and the Bush administration's foreign policy elicit hundreds of letters.

Argento was sent hundreds of e-mails after recently doing an unflattering column about the late Ronald Reagan. Bennett received more than 1,000 messages after a column contrasting the conservative atmosphere in the United States with "all the progressive legislation enacted or in the pipeline in Canada." Kaiser said columns drawing the most response include any on high drug prices.

Most of the columnists interviewed answer all or many of their e-mails ? sometimes drawing the line at very nasty ones.

Robert Haught of The Oklahoman in Oklahoma City said he answers all e-mails "unless they're obviously mass-generated or totally off the wall." Argento added: "If someone took the trouble to read my work and e-mail me about it, they deserve a reply, even if it's sometimes just a brief note thanking them for reading."