American Blog

Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY

By Darryl Mason

So this is where the Great Age Of Establishment Newspaper Opinion (1950 - 2010) ends up, no more respected than as a mostly crappy prize in a corporate media competition.

The Washington Post, like The New York Times, is finding it harder and harder to compete with all the voices of the blogosphere, and all the tweets and aggregators and other blogsites, that alert readers to the best of opinion online, most of which does not often now include the works of pundits punditing for the old establishment media. Traditional newspaper columnists are finding their work is nowhere near as hallowed or respected as it once might have been.

Everyone’s got an opinion, and the number of people getting their opinions out in front of an audience larger than a family BBQ, is millions more than the volume who’d had a op-ed or letter printed in a newspaper in the decades when there were only newspapers.

But why is the Washington Post running a comp for fresh columnists?

Is it simply because the old voices of opinion are exactly that? Old?

Or is it because so many of the ‘thinktanks’ and ‘institutions’ that used to pay the cost of producing reams of free opinion content for the likes of The Washington Post and the New York Times (and the London Times and the Sydney Morning Herald, and so on) aren’t doing so well financially these days?

Here’s The Washington Post graphic for its America’s Next Great Pundit competition :

This is how they’re selling it :

Here’s your chance to put your opinions to the test — and win the opportunity to write a weekly column and a launching pad for your opinionating career!

Use the entry form to send us a short opinion essay (400 words or less) pegged to a topic in the news and an additional paragraph (100 words or less) on yourself and why you should win. Entries will be judged on the basis of style, intelligence and freshness of argument, but not on whether Post editors agree or disagree with your point of view.

It never even occurred to me that Washington Post editors would refuse to publish something, simply because they disagreed with it.

It’s not just about finding new columnists, however, the Washington Post is priming itself for a fresh marketing jaunt to push their brand as some kind of Hip Cool Fresh Opinion Grand Central :

Beginning on or about Oct. 30, ten prospective pundits will get to compete for the title of America’s Next Great Pundit, facing off in challenges that test the skills a modern pundit must possess. They’ll have to write on deadline, hold their own on video and field questions from Post readers. (Contestants won’t have to quit their day jobs, but they should be prepared to put in about eight hours a week for three weeks.) After each round, a panel of Post personalities will offer kudos and catcalls, and reader votes will help to determine who gets another chance at a byline and who has to shut down their laptop.

So here’s what you win :

The ultimate winner will get the opportunity to write a weekly column that may appear in the print and/or online editions of The Washington Post, paid at a rate of $200 per column, for a total of 13 weeks and $2,600.

$200 a column? Cheap bastards.

And what lies beyond the Washington Post for America’s Next Great Pundit earning $200 a week for a column but hoping for something more?

We’ll set our promising pundit on a path to become the next byline in demand, the talking head every show wants to book, the voice that helps the country figure out what’s really going on.

They may want to book you to be a talking head, but they won’t pay you either.

Okay, cynicisim and old school ‘WTF is the Washington Post doing?’ cynicism aside, I hope it really does open up the Opinion section of the Washington Post to new voices, with something fresh and interesting to say, because what was once a daily essential for me - checking to see who’s saying what about this or that - has dropped off to an occasional glance in, as I’m sure it has for many others who find their attention drawn increasingly away from the Old Media Online and in particular its establishment opinionists.

Put it this way. If there wasn’t such a vibrant feast of ideas and atittudes and opinions already online, many of whom who can get their point across in far less than 800 or 1200 words, the Washington Post would not be blogsizing itself in such a MySpace-y kind of way.

Another look at the graphic the Washington Post is using to sell America’s Next Great Pundit :

The Washington Post seems to think that Fox News-style confrontation punditry is the future of having your say.

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