Tommy, we can hear you (fine)

By: Barbara Bedway Tommy Tomlinson, a columnist for the The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer since 1997, told himself long ago that if he ever got a dream job like this he was not going to limit himself. "I'm interested in a lot of different things, and I want to cover the waterfront," says Tomlinson, a reporter for the paper since 1989. Now his columns ? with subjects ranging from the wind in February ("like Dad coughing at the front door, signaling it's time to go") to President Bush's truth deficit on Iraq ? have brought him acclaim far beyond the Carolinas.

In February, the New York-based news magazine The Week named him the country's top local columnist, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) last month awarded him first prize for profile-writing, honoring stories on a professor's dogged pursuit of solving a math problem and a Charlotte man who prevailed over grievous physical injury to become a policeman.

"On the one hand, it's very cool to get to go to New York and hang out in Tina Brown's apartment," he allows. "But with the ASNE award, you get to be in a book," which, he points out, is far more likely to impress his mother back home in Jesup, Ga. Tomlinson says the awards "make you realize what a crapshoot it all is. I've won awards from the North Carolina Press Association in the past ? but this year, I didn't even place in it."

Tomlinson, who has a journalism degree from the University of Georgia, got his first job out of college at The Augusta Chronicle and Herald in 1986, where he claims to have been "the most clueless legislative reporter in history." But he got to cover a wide range of subjects, and these days he's come to understand that "a good part of this job is figuring out what not to put in a story. I try to get across complicated ideas in simple language. That's important to me.

"My mom and dad were sharecroppers, and both had to quit school early," he notes. "My mom could understand nuclear fission if it's explained to her in a clear way. If I can't think of a simple way to say it, I generally leave it out."

Tips for columns come mainly from readers and other reporters. "I love writing about the weather," he says. "In Shakespeare, the weather always means something. I like using weather as a metaphor that way." The columnists he admires include Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times; Dan Barry of The New York Times; and his friend, sportswriter Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star. The contemporary novelists Harry Crews ? "he grew up not far from me in Georgia," Tomlinson says ? and Larry Brown from Mississippi also merit mention as influences.

He believes a good local columnist needs a strong voice ("Somebody readers want to listen to, even if they don't agree with you") and a sense of humor: "Except for the comics, there's really no place in the paper you go to get a laugh. And people have so little time to read the newspapers, they're looking for a reason not to read your story. If you can make them laugh ? or at least smile ? you've brought them into the tent."

As an example, Tomlinson cites how his column on the woes of relentless highway construction around Charlotte began with the three things that would happen if he ran the state's Department of Transportation: Drivers who cut in traffic without signaling would get the death penalty; a 1974 Eldorado convertible would be his company car; and not one inch of new highway would be built the rest of the year. "I get into serious issues, but lead with a funny line ? it's like giving a speech at the Rotary Club, where you start off with a joke or two, a toastmaster thing," he says.

He notes that what's true of all journalists is especially true of local columnists: "You need to know a little about a lot of things. I'm always struck at the number of people who work at a paper who never read the paper itself thoroughly. You need to be writing off the news a lot. When I speak to journalism students, they seem to be zoned out of the world."

All the national attention will not lure Tomlinson away from Charlotte because, he jokes, "it took me 11 years to figure out the roads here, so I am not going anywhere." You'd think a writer who can make the February wind worthy of its own profile might try his hand at a novel, but he insists he won't because "the world is so much better than my imagination." Besides, he says, in a way he is already writing a book: "It's just 600 words at a time."