Best Newspaper Columns of All Time

Pretty fascinating piece I came across on Twitter recently with Charlotte Observer columnist Tommy Tomlinson linking to a Wall Street Journal blog entry titled "What’s the Best Newspaper Column of All Time?"

An arbitrary question to be sure, but interesting nonetheless.

Actual listing was done courtesy of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists with the story from their website being "Top Ten American Columns in History". Linked to from both the WSJ and this piece was a 31 page PDF of what was said to be the top fifteen (I know, the story was titled "top ten") columns. One through fifteen ranking was then determined by picks from both members of the Society and the general public.

After reading both the ranking and the stories, I kind of wish I had seen the stories first so as to not influence which ones stood out to me, but below were my personal favorites in no particular order (with links I was able to find directly to the pieces)...

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus – Frances Pharcellus Church – New York Sun – 9/21/1897

The Death of Captain Waskow - Ernie Pyle - Scripps Howard – 1/10/44

It’s an Honor - Jimmy Breslin - New York Herald Tribune - November 1963

Daley Embodied Chicago – Mike Royko – Chicago Sun Times – 12/21/76

We’ll Go Forward From This Moment – Leonard Pitts Jr. – Miami Herald – 9/11/01

All were pretty short, but powerful in their own distinct ways.

The piece by Pitts practically overpowers the reader with it's imagery, and those by both Breslin and Pyle work to great effect in a much more understated way. The Church story is just plain famous (and good) and the Royko story (around the middle of the PDF previously linked) has what I'd consider to be some iconic phrases... noted below because I thought they were just so darn great:

"So when Daley slid sideways into a sentence, or didn’t exit from the same paragraph he
entered, it amused us."

"The town was built by great men who demanded the drunkards and harlots be arrested,
while charging them rent until the cops arrived."

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Really good writing linked here (granted, it is supposed to be The Best)... that said, I am a touch surprised to not see here Death of a Racehorse by W.C. Heinz for the New York Sun in 1949. I first heard of the piece from W.C. Heinz, 1915-2008 by Chris Jones for Esquire and found it to be definitely on par with the other great works in how each and every word has such heft behind it.

Roger Ebert Profile from Esquire

Great piece on Roger Ebert in the March 2010 issue of Esquire.

From the frequently linked to in this blog Esquire writer Chris Jones, "Roger Ebert: The Essential Man" is an in-depth look at the film critic.



What comes out in the piece is the health battles that Ebert has gone through and how that's impacted and guided his life and work.

I'm always interested in the idea of a writer who also does a large amount of blogging and Ebert's blog definitely puts him in this category (with another writing resident being Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski who publishes his "Joe Blog").

To the mention of Ebert's blog, Esquire included online a link to his blog post about Jones writing the profile. Not often that you get to read both a deeply personal story about someone and then the subject's thoughts about that story.

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Also of interest to me from this March 2010 Esquire issue was the extremely short Scott Raab piece "How to Teach Your Kid About Money" and a reference to the W.C. Heinz book "The Professional".

I don't find the Raab piece online so I'll just list out here some of the concepts I liked from it:
- Even at a young age, your kids should learn about money... and a $100 bill from the Tooth Fairy can help accomplish that.
- An allowance says your kids work for you... they don't, they're part of the family.

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The W.C. Heinz book reference was of interest as Heinz was written about shortly after his death by the aforementioned Chris Jones... with his story "Death of a Racehorse" noted as an example of great writing.

As I looked online a bit for Heinz and his work, I found he also had a few different pieces included in "The Best American Sports Writing of the Century". Pretty good company there for Heinz...

Excellent Writing: From Esquire

Below is a hodgepodge listing of some really good writing from Esquire Magazine over the last few years...

- "What I've Learned" by Glenn Fitzpatrick, 46-year old Esquire editor diagnosed with ALS... from the March 2008 issue.

- "What I've Learned" by Carrie Fischer featuring some various ramblings in the Jan 2008 issue from the actress who portrayed Princess Leia. One of the most interesting is “I like having written the same way I like having gone to the gym. I’m a conversationalist more than a writer. I take dictation from myself. I talk about myself behind my back.”

- A Scott Raab written profile of Sean Penn just before the release of "Into the Wild", the movie Penn wrote and directed based off the Jon Krakauer book of the same title. Really insightful stuff...

- "I Do Not Have a Death Wish" from writer David Vann. This story was from the Dec 2007 issue of Esquire and it's a first-person account of Vann's preparations to attempt a round-the-world sail of a homemade boat. The follow-up to this introduction can be found here on the Esquire site. One of the compelling things here is that it's such good first-person writing of an interesting story.

- An obituary of sorts of writer W.C. Heinz by my favorite living writer, Chris Jones (previously posted about here as well as here). Jones references Heinz's short story "Death of a Racehorse".