New Column: That's News to Me

From the Introduction to my new CWN column, That's News to Me:

I’ve been aware for a while now that the name Comic World News is a misnomer. I’m very proud of this site and I love it as if I created it myself, but let’s face it, it’s never been a news site. We have the best damn pundits on the internet and I like to think that our reviews are strong, but that makes us an opinion site, not one that reports the news.

I don’t wanna change the name – I like the name – but a while back Columns Editor Shawn Hoke and I discussed the idea of adding a column that was more news-oriented. Not a purely journalistic column – that would be amazing, but we need baby steps here – but sort of a weekly news wrap up with commentary. That would at least get us started in the right direction.

We tossed around some names as possible columnists, but never settled on anyone. Recently, though, I’ve been thinking again about the idea of CWN as a news site and how to make that happen. More frequent – and regular – posting of news items and interviews is one way and we’ve been doing that for a week or so now, updating the Headlines and/or Interviews sections of the site three times a day. I’m shooting for at least one new interview a week.

This column is a third way and, as you can see in the byline, I’ve taken a do-it-yourself approach. Not out of desperation, but because I found myself drifting towards news commentary in the weekly CWN Newsletter anyway and figured I might as well start doing it for real.

As I told Shawn when I pitched the idea at him, I’m not afraid of snarking when it’s deserved, but that’s not what this column is about. I’m going to keep this light, but I’m also going to try to actually think about news stories before I assume that the people they’re about are idiots.