Columnist profile

It took me a while, but I finally picked one.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to lengthen this post any further than five hundred words.  *sigh*

One of the many assignments my column writing class has been given is to do a profile column on a columnist that is in a major publication. Either a newspaper that distributes throughout the majority of a state, a national newspaper, or a nationally published magazine. I chose to do my assignment on Newsweek columnist Andrew Romano.

Personally, I can't stand his opinions, but I'm willing to put up with it due to the professional manner he maintains. Primarily a political writer, his political slant tends to be more left-leaning, but he still provides insightful analysis into both Republican and Democratic bases, and has given criticism about major Democratic figures. In addition, Mr. Romano also does the occasional column about society, giving his opinion on matters. A recent example would be his article on “re-imagining masculinity”, in which he argues that masculinity needs to be re-assessed for modern times.

To best summarize Andrew Romano, look no further than his author page on Newsweek's website. The summary reads:

“Andrew Romano was named Senior Writer in December 2008. He reports on politics, culture and food for the print and web editions of the magazine. Recent articles include a dispatch from Princeton on "postracial" America, a story on the country's first viral restaurant, an essay on millennial attitudes towards sex and in-depth profiles of potential 2012 presidential contenders Bobby Jindal and Mark Sanford.

From October 2007 to November 2008, Romano traveled with the 2008 presidential candidates and filed four or five items a day—reportage, analysis and humor—to "Stumper," his Newsweek campaign blog, while continuing to write political stories for the weekly magazine (a musical profile of Mike Huckabee, an analysis of Ron Paul's "long tail" candidacy, a personal take on Barack Obama's appeal to young Americans). Thanks to Stumper, which won MINOnline's Best Consumer Blog award and was cited as one of the cycle's best news blogs by both Editor & Publisher and the Deadline Club of New York, Romano was Newsweek.com's most-read author for 2008.

Prior to Stumper, Romano was a reporter in Newsweek's New York headquarters contributing to the magazine's National Affairs coverage. In that capacity, he profiled Al Franken, interviewed Paul McCartney, revealed how MySpace and police officers are working together to solve crimes, pieced together the story of a cannibalistic New Orleans murder-suicide, discovered the U.S. military recruiting at paintball events and memorialized the Virginia Tech victims. Romano joined Newsweek as an intern in June 2004 after working as a stringer for New Jersey's Trenton Times. He went on to cover the 2004 presidential campaign as a reporter-researcher in the magazine's Information Graphics department.

Romano graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University in 2004 with an A.B. in English and a certificate in American Studies. A native of Medford, N.J., he lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.”

You can read more of his articles at http://www.newsweek.com/authors/andrew-romano.html.