Be Careful What You Wish For: Community Columnists Really Suck

by Concerned Citizens Command Professionalism

You ever see Monty Python's Life of Brian? Remember the part when the Jewish people are allowed to set one prisoner free and they keep exploiting Pontious Pilate's speech impediment? Welease Woger... Welease Wodewick. Maybe we all should have learned a lesson from the Jews 2000 years ago--don't mess with the big guy or you might get burned, or at least be careful what you wish for. Case in point, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Community Columnist articles. People must have been clamoring to have more of a voice in the newspaper. Probably religious fanatics and hippies at first, and then the rest of the mainstream followed suit. "Sure, we'd love to hear what Joe Average from Niceneighborhood wants to say." Or, "Boy, those newspaper reporters sure are biased, so we should have an alternative voice." Let's keep in mind that newspaper reporters are all relatively poor yet have excellent educations, like teachers, museum curators, and prostitutes, so you should listen to what they have to say. But no, the people clamored for change, and what they got was what they should have expected. People trained in high school writing courses writing like they're still in high school about absolutely meaningless topics, with no insight (besides trivial personal experience) and never any factual evidence to back up claims. It's like the Journal Sentinel is printing the extended club-mix versions of the ridiculous letters to the editor they receive. Simplistic answers to complex questions--is that really what we want our most read local news source to be publishing? Many who work for the Journal Sentinel fought against the use of these columnists, and not just to save their crappy jobs, but because, like zookeepers, farmers, and short immigrants, they take pride in their work, no matter how little they make. I know you want some facts to back up my opinions on the community columnists, and I think Jim Brown's 11-21-06 piece of garbage about what we should be thankful for as an essay on how wonderful his own family is provides one painful example, especially when the beyond-cliche "Can't we all just get along" phrase was used at the end. Damn, he made me write that crap, too. Anyway, don't waste your valuable screwing-around-at-work time trying to find his article--just read the next one that comes out and decide for yourself. And you can disagree if you want to, but then you might as well stand in the public square, yelling, "Welease Wodewick!"