Cite this article Hide citations. Owen, Laura Hazard. Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, 22 Jul. Owen, L. Nieman Journalism Lab. Last modified July 22, Accessed November 14, The Nieman Journalism Lab is a collaborative attempt to figure out how quality journalism can survive and thrive in the Internet age.
July 22, , 7 a. By Laura Hazard Owen laurahazardowen July 22, , 7 a. Bill Carey. Dan Kois. Daniel Mallory Ortberg. Dear Prudence.
Jamilah Lemieux. Michelle Herman. Nick Greene. Nicole Cliffe. Rich Juzwiak. Most of the columnists I spoke with guessed that their readership is mainly white and female. Columns marketed specifically to men tend to skirt emotional territory, focussing instead on practical questions: whether the necktie is dead , how to hack your caffeine intake. When people of color appear in advice columns, it is often as supporting characters to a white protagonist.
These problems did not seem germane to me. In reality, these questions are a manifestation of a broken system, one that will be terribly hard to fix. Despite their limitations, advice columns can function as cultural seismographs. It is MeToo, perhaps more than any other public reckoning, that has underlined just how vulnerable individuals can be in the face of cultures and systems. As a result, advice acts as part of an utterly American network of patchwork fixes—naloxone carried in your purse, GoFundMe campaigns subbing for public services.
Advice columns are fundamentally about how we relate to others: at home, in the office, in public spaces. They are society writ small, and their ambitions are small, too. It may be possible, however, to aim for more.
The most ambitious American advice columnist worked for less than two years. In , Martin Luther King, Jr. Readers asked him whether playing rock and roll for a living was a sin , whether birth control was immoral , how he felt about nuclear weapons , and whether to fight in the army of a racist country.
Installments poignantly aligned the mundane with the spiritual. He speculated on the nature of enduring love, bookended by ads for Lustrasilk hair straightener. Are you careful with your grooming?
Alison Green, the columnist behind Ask a Manager, notes that the anonymity of submitting queries is a key factor. But we have a very transparent track record. And, Peepas adds, those closest to us often feel, well, too close. When asked whether their job felt newly resonant during a global pandemic, the advice columnists I spoke to mentioned a change in tone within the queries posed.
Although still dealing with similar themes — how to properly address family members, ideal ways to navigate work situations — the questions posed felt more urgent and confused, trying to understand a general new world order just as intensely as trying to explore particular scenarios. COVID certainly changed the nature of workplace-themed advice columns as well, which have long been popular.
Then, when offices started reopening, I started getting panicked letters about people not wanting to go back.
Lately, I see a light at the end of the tunnel because all those interpersonal awkwardness questions are coming back. But the events and circumstances of the last year also highlighted a glaring issue in the advice column world: the general homogeneity of the columnists.
Although the origins of the advice column are slightly murky, the public consensus attributes the start of the form to one John Dunton, the publisher and editor-in-chief of Athenian Mercury , a magazine that launched in London back in
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