Columnist says goodbye — sort of

St. Paul Pioneer Press business columnist David Beal said goodbye to his readers in his Sunday column, as he is retiring but will return to the paper to occasionally write.

Beal wrote, “I flew through all of the columns I wrote for the Pioneer Press, all 2,300 of them, to identify 10 columns I was especially proud of and 10 that missed the mark. I ended up with far more hits than misses — surprise, surprise — but there certainly were some clunkers and, truth to tell, many that were stunningly mediocre.

“I found patterns. From 1982 to 1988, I was business editor as well as a once-a-week columnist — a common model then. As business editor, I often represented the paper to the business community — sort of an ‘ambassadorial’ role, and one that sometimes worked to soften the content of the column.

“Since leaving the business editor job and moving into full-time column writing, and particularly since 2000, my column has gotten notably more edgy. This sharper edge, with more criticism, reflects a trend among business journalists. As we have covered the corporate scandals of recent years, many of us have reappraised our late-1990s coverage. Then, we often acted as cheerleaders — sometimes almost gushing about ‘The New Economy’ and the bullish stock market.

“A common theme of my ’10 misses,’ all but one of which came before the stock-market bubble burst, is going overboard in accentuating the positive.

“When I got it right, by contrast, the columns usually involved deep reporting and ‘connecting the dots’ — bringing together things I’d learned over the years. For example, my letter offering friendly advice to new 3M CEO George Buckley drew on decades of experience following that company. After it was published, lots of 3Mers, including a former CEO, e-mailed or called to say my letter was on the money.”

Read more here.

His list of 10 columns that hit the mark and 10 columns that missed can be found here. It’s something I think every business columnist should do on an annual basis.