"Everybody is a critic," people used to say. Not anymore. Now everybody is a commentator. The Internet has turned my sedentary and unglamorous occupation into a hobby or sport -- still sedentary, but no longer as unglamorous as it used to be.
Gone are the days when a journalist, as the great H.L. Mencken put it, was just a "reporter with two pairs of pantaloons." Now a journalist is a pundit, no less, with pantaloons galore. And a web- logger -- blogger -- is someone who wants to be a pundit without the bother of having to earn a journalist's pantaloons first, never mind a reporter's.
I personally view punditry as Nero's art -- playing the fiddle while Rome is burning -- but, as the fine Australian commentator, Walter Murdoch, pointed out more than 70 years ago: "If everyone had refrained from fiddling when Rome was burning, what would have become of the noble art of music? For when has Rome not been burning?"
A reader, who seems to languish in cottage country doldrums with nothing better to do, asks me to agree with him that a blogger is "just like" a columnist. Sorry, I can't. I will agree, though, that a columnist is "just like" a blogger. The first proposition is like saying, "all golfers are golf pros," which is nonsense, the second like "all golf pros are golfers," which is self-evident and, as such, a waste of breath.
What my reader really wants to know is how a columnist chooses his topics ("his or her topics," as he puts it.) Well, I've no idea how "she" chooses her topics, or for that matter how "he" chooses his, but my topics tend to choose me rather than the other way around.
Sometimes it happens directly. I sit at home, toying with pleasant thoughts, topics for columns the farthest thing from my mind, when the telephone interrupts my reverie. "Can you do the chickens," asks an editor, "for Friday?"
"Chickens? What chickens?"
"You mean, you haven't heard?" He sounds incredulous. "It's only the biggest scandal in provincial history. Never mind, I'll call someone up to speed -- I'll call Bob."
"Hold it," I hear myself say. "Just hold it for a goddam minute. You want up to speed, I'll give you up to speed. Research, opinion, the lot. Chickens for Friday comin' up, whatever they may be."
That's the way to talk to editors. Let's see Bob match that. Yes, he probably knows all about the Chicken Scandal Supreme, but anybody can write an opinion piece on what they know about. The sporting thing is to tackle topics you don't know anything about and no chance of finding out, either, before deadline. As the late John Greenwood, Q.C., used to explain to young prosecutors, when he was Ontario's Assistant Deputy Attorney General, anybody can convict the guilty; the trick is to convict the innocent.
Greenwood was only kidding, of course. However, if you hear the same thing from a columnist, don't bet on it being a joke.
Anyway, topics wait in ambush around every corner, beginning with the corner that shelters the TV set in the den. Television may prompt you to "write off the news," as some editors call it, conveying (unintentionally) a double meaning. One does consider the news a write-off, in a sense, for column-topics tend to lurk between the lines rather than in the main text. I certainly find myself commenting on what news items fail to say more often than what they insist on saying.
Take this week's World Soccer Championship. Glancing at the various national teams on TV is like following the arms race during the early years of the Cold War. The contest back then was about whether the German rocket scientists of America would outscore the German rocket scientists of Russia. This week's soccer contest seems to be about whether the African strikers of France will outscore the African strikers of Germany. Possibly the honours will go to the African strikers of Africa. In fairness, there are a few genuinely national teams being fielded, such as South Korea's. The trouble is, they're rarely seen in any proximity to the football.
Sometimes a topic is personal. This week I had a birthday. With impeccable timing, a Toronto study reported that people are more likely to suffer a heart attack or a stroke on their birthday than on any other day.
Birthdays will get you, one way or the other.
© 2006 George Jonas
CanWest Publications
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