These are the top ten newspaper columns selected by The National Society of Newspaper Columnists and published in Deadline Artists: America’s Greatest Newspaper Columns. The selection was based on an online questionnaire from their website and emailed to it’s members. The columns selected are featured in Deadline Artists.

Jackie’s Debut—Mike Royko—Chicago Sun-Times—10/25/1972

[Mike Royko wrote this reminiscence on the day of Jackie Robinson’s death.] All that Saturday, the wise men of the neighborhood, who sat in chairs on the sidewalk outside the tavern, had talked about what it would do to baseball. … Continue reading

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The Subway Rebel—Frederick B. Edwards—New York Herald Tribune—11/20/1924

Benjamin Mehlig, a small man with an office at 132 Fulton Street, who had a habit of leaving the West Side Interborough subway at 157th Street and Broadway every evening at a little before 6 o’clock, set his teeth firmly … Continue reading

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Molly Ivins – A Short Story about the Vietnam War Memorial – Dallas Times Herald – 11/30/82

SHE had known, ever since she first read about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, that she would go there someday. Sometime she would be in Washington and would go and see his name and leave again. So silly, all that fuss … Continue reading

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Jimmy Breslin – It’s an Honor – New York Herald Tribune – November 1963

Clifton Pollard was pretty sure he was going to be working on Sunday, so when he woke up at 9 a.m., in his three-room apartment on Corcoran Street, he put on khaki overalls before going into the kitchen for breakfast. … Continue reading

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Mike Royko – Daley Embodied Chicago – Chicago Sun Times – 12/21/76

If a man ever reflected a city, it was Richard J. Daley of Chicago. In some ways, he was this town at its best—strong, hard-driving, working feverishly, pushing, building, driven by ambitions so big they seemed Texas-boastful. In other ways, … Continue reading

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Murray Kempton – He Went All the Way – 9/22/1958

MOSE Wright, making a formation no white man in his county really believed he would dare to make, stood on his tiptoes to the full limit of his sixty-four years and his five feet three inches yesterday, pointed his black, … Continue reading

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Red Smith – Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff – New York Herald Tribune – 10/4/54

Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again. Down on … Continue reading

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Ernie Pyle – The Death of Captain Waskow – Scripps Howard – 1/10/44

AT THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY, January 10, 1944 – In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man … Continue reading

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Walter Lippmann – Amelia Earhart – Herald Tribune – 7/8/37

I cannot quite remember whether Miss Earhart undertook her flight with some practical purpose in mind, say, to demonstrate something or other about aviation which will make it a little easier for commercial passengers to move more quickly around the … Continue reading

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Westbrook Pegler — The Death of Frankie Jerome — News Syndicate — 1/18/24

A yellow-haired kid with a mashed nose and scalloped lips dipped his fingers in the holy water fount of St. Jerome’s Church, crossed himself with the fist that killed Frankie Jerome and went to his knees on the cold marble … Continue reading

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