Times Columnists

If I had a personal column in a major newspaper without an area of expertise I would be riven with anxiety every week. I suppose there are people who have the wit, intelligence and writing chops to mine their personal lives for content or come up with an amusing but inoffensive take on something in the news, but such people are few and far between. Britain's media, which is possibly the most cliquey and incestuous in the world, has too many personal columnists with vey talent, who oscillate between banality, oversharing and being offensive in their columns. The Times and the Daily Telegraph have too many such columnists. This week I learnt that a Times columnist who I always thought of as a talentless toff is also mean-spirited and vindictive. Who would have thought? He sent a vile tweet about a recently dead female working-class journalist who had once said he had benefitted from nepotism. But, I don't want to talk about him. Having a personal column of this sort must be a very toxifying experience. To carry on with a personal column in the absence of talent or expertise you have to start believing your own brand. You have to start thinking of yourself as a brand and keep marketing yourself as one. Its one thing to do it with a product, but completely another to do it when you yourself are the product. Personal columnists were influencers before social-media influencers became a thing. And,  I feel they are more dangerous because the have an air of intellect and respectability that social media influencers don't.