COLUMNIST, one who is responsible for a stipulated amount of writing, humorous or semi-serious in character, on a daily newspaper. Originally this material was confined to the editorial page as a relief from its serious nature, but it now occurs in the sports section, if the writer's trend is in that direction, or on a page devoted to various types of feature writing. The columnist may do all his cwn writing or he may depend to a greater or less extent upon contributors, in which case he acts as editor of the column. In either case he maintains a running commentary on contemporary life. He attacks its shams and hypocrisies and especially the individuals who best epitomize them, and in so doing has a variety of tools at his disposal, including jokes, jingles, light verse, short editorials, paragraphs, anecdotes, humorous mottoes, reminiscences and short essays. He may be obviously humorous, subtly so, cynical or satirical or any combination of these, but the result must be entertaining; his own personality must always shine through and his personal bias be apparent. Since the success of the column depends upon the utter freedom of expression of the writer he escapes the ordinary editorial restrictions.