Columnists are a lot like politicians. Both like to tell other people what to do while shamelessly promoting themselves and their interests.
I am a perfect example of this. I tell you what you should do (enjoy life, eliminate stress, make the most of your time in college, etc.) while shamelessly promoting myself (Peter N. Long is amazing!) and my interests (Drink Starbucks coffee! Van Halen rules! Stop Hitler!). I'm not quite sure what type of campaign I've been running with \The Long and Short of It,"" but I like to think I'm ahead in the polls.
This may or may not be my last semester as a columnist for The Daily Cardinal, and with 12 or so columns until the end of the school year, I'd like to explore some issues I've yet to tackle and have some fun.
I am not a fan of the spring semester at the University of Wisconsin. It's cold, dreary, miserable and depressing; add the pressures of school and everything else going on in your life on top of the desolation of February and March, and you get a type of personal anguish known only to unsuccessful field goal kickers and journalism majors.
What my columnist counterparts and I often fail to realize is that the worst thing we can possibly do is heap our problems, gripes and discrepancies atop those of our readers, especially during the already dismal winter season.
On a dark, bleak, 25-degree-below-zero day, when you have three lectures and two discussions to attend, a cold that won't quit and roommates who are driving you up the wall, do you really want to read about some arrogant columnist's problems with her art history professor or his inability to find that ""perfect soulmate""? Unless you're a sadist or enjoy neurotic ramblings, the answer is probably ""no.""
Though we columnists tend to take ourselves much more seriously than we ever should, our basic job is simple-to provide our core audience with a few minutes worth of distraction from the trappings of their daily lives; nothing more, nothing less. We're not here to change anyone's life or amass a small army of zombie disciples (well, not all of us, that is); we exist as but a voice and a mug shot offering our take on the world around us.
My search for a summer internship has made it painfully obvious to me now that this column will not get me a job. No newspaper editor down in Miami or magazine editor in New York is going to read ""The Long and Short of It"" online one Wednesday morning and yell to the nearest secretary, ""WE NEED THIS KID NOW!"" In these next four months, all I can aim to do is have some fun, and hope you're having fun with me.
After I've graduated and moved on from this amazing place, someone might ask me about my few years as a columnist for a collegiate daily. ""What do you think was your greatest strength?"" they'll ask.
""There are many answers,"" I'll coolly respond, ""but the one I am most confident in is that I wrote for my audience,"" after which I will replace my paper hat and resume flipping the quarter-pounders on the fryer in front of me.
