Right, Left, Write
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My thousandth column was published sometime this year, not sure exactly when. At about 800 words each, it hasn’t amounted to a million yet; that’ll take another four years if I keep it up. It all started with letters to the editor when I felt strongly about something. Then I published a few opinion pieces in a Catholic weekly newspaper, then a few in a big daily which was first to pay me. In 1992, I began publishing every week and lately I’m asking myself why I keep doing it. The money is nice, but it’s not a lot. Other ventures pay much better.
It’s probably because I write about whatever I want. Mostly it’s been politics and world affairs, or social issues, or history - whatever is most on my mind any given week. Sometimes it’s a personal issue, but there are some personal issues about which I’d like to write but cannot do so publicly because it might hurt others, or because I haven’t come to enough resolution on them to make any sense in print. Should they resolve themselves, they’ll likely emerge here.
Various editors have suggested that I write more of this kind of column or that kind, but I’ve resisted, and I guess that answers my question. I only write what I feel like writing, and I’m likely to continue as long as I can do that.
When I started in the mid-to-late 1980s, I was still pretty liberal. If I’d stayed that way, I would likely have gotten bigger checks because most big dailies are liberal, but I changed. I was moving right while New England was moving left. Readership diminished. I’m still changing, and don’t expect to stop until I stop breathing.
An old friend from Massachusetts happened upon my blog last year and was shocked that I’m so conservative now. We both worked a couple of years with Saul Alinsky, red diaper baby “community organizers” in the early ‘70s. He’s still a proud leftist and loyal Democrat. He didn’t ask me why I’d changed, and I didn’t ask him why he hasn’t. Perhaps we’ll discuss it someday.
The rest is here.
Closing in on you, guys. My 300th was sometime earlier this year, but I've only been at it for three years.
I used to be a bigtime leftist too, Tom. The interesting thing is how many of today's liberals categorically refuse to learn, or to be ashamed. They are "locked in".
It's a curious thing.
First congrats to you all on your writing achievements. As for liberal becoming conservatives? Its really hard to overcome successful brainwashing. Probably harder than quitting smoking even.
Also interesting, Mike, is that I met you back in the late 80s when the PPH asked for guest columns and I submitted some. Four were selected for publication and I believe you had a hand in that. Looks like you were the token, in-house conservative at that paper for several years. I used to read you on Mondays. Good stuff. You took a lot of grief in letters to the editor and I've learned since how that feels. It used to bother me, but now I rather enjoy it. Now I see such strongly negative feedback as evidence that I'm on to something good.
I recall what you wrote. You occasionally wrote a letter saying you liked my columns, even. But it is true about the critical letters. I liken it to hunting. If you shoot at something and hear no noise, you might have missed it. But if it squeals, you know you were on target.
BTW, the column runs on Fridays now. And I do differ with you on one thing. There is nothing "token" about my conservatism.....
No doubt your conservatism is genuine and long-standing. I mean it in the way that you were the only conservative voice in-house there at the PPH, as Jeff Jacoby is for the Boston Globe. I fill that role at two local papers here in western Maine and eastern NH. We exist so the publishers can say, "See? We print that guy, so not all our columnists are lefties."
I understand what you're saying, Tom, but it implies that I was hired as a conservative to represent that point of view. In fact, I was hired (brought up from my assistant managing editor's job in the newsroom) to oversee the oped pages for the PH when they created them. It was only later that I was asked to write a regular column, and my boss was stunned to discover I was a conservative, as I had been treating all comers evenhandly in regard to access to the page. He could not believe that such a person could be a conservative -- or, possibly, that a journalist could be a conservative. Either way, I wasn't turning back. But again, I was hired for my journalistic skills, and if I had been conventionally liberal, nothing would have been said or done to bring a conservative on board. Balance was not a part of the equation at all. (And if you want to draw any conclusions about what that says about the value the editors placed on conservative views, I can't stop you....)
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Interesting. When I read this, I went back and did the math, and discovered I had also published my thousandth column earlier this year. I started irregularly in 1990, and went to weekly status a couple of years later (all for the PPH). Adding the Maine Wire last December pushed me over the top in January or February. But this was not my path. I became consciously a conservative in the 10th grade, after reading "Conscience of a Conservative," the campaign book Brent Bozell ghost-wrote for Barry Goldwater, and maintained the worldview all the way through Bowdoin, which was as liberal then as it is today. Then I was "the conservative" in the political science department at Pitt, getting the master's that put me on the road to journalism. I did not study or work in a non-liberal environment (outside of the Army, of course) until I went to seminary in a traditional church, from which I graduated in 2006 with another master's. So I kept sharp by being sharpened, both by circumstances as well as my reading in a wide variety of disciplines. It is interesting that we ended up in the same place, though...
One of the differences between conservatives in the media and academia and liberals there (and to some extent, in the larger society) is that liberals tend not to read conservative books or journals, or watch Fox, or have many friends who disagree with them. Conservatives are fish that swim in a liberal sea (at least in the Northeast) and cannot avoid encountering opposing views. Maybe that's why liberals resort to namecalling and abuse rather than real argument so much, as they are not acquainted with disagreement enough to be able to counter it intellectually instead of emotionally. (And yes, I know there are abusive conservatives. But there's a difference between calling someone a bigot who is not a bigot, and calling someone a socialist who actually is a socialist....)