W. Bruce Cameron and the Decline of the Newspaper Humor Column

Everyone who fondly remembers opening up an actual, physical newspaper to the page of their favorite weekly humor columnist will probably enjoy reading this interview with columnist W. Bruce Cameron on the occasion of his retirement. He talks about starting his column via email, a relatively new medium in 1995:

That was back in the days when you didn’t mind if your Uncle Harry sent you something that he’d picked up on the Internet. You didn’t mind and you read the whole thing and then it said, “Send your e-mail to this address to subscribe,” and you’d be like, “Oh, yeah. I’ll do that,” you know? When you get something like that now, you know, there’s something going around like cute baby fox pictures, you’re like, “I don’t have time for this,” and you delete it without even looking at it.

And no one thinks of all the poor cute baby foxes who can’t even get our attention. Who will look at them now?! I may start a foundation for this cause. Cameron also discusses the dubious honor of being the “most plagiarized person on the Internet” and how much the field of column writing has changed in the last 17 years. (Answer: lots.)

W. Bruce Cameron and the Decline of the Newspaper […]