Doing It His Way: Bono, NYTimes columnist
Tuesday, January 13, 2009 | 10:22 PM ET
Illustration by Jillian Tamaki
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the announcement that the New York Times had hired U2 frontman Bono to write an op-ed column this year. The man is many things – singer, activist, poet, former Time magazine Person of the Year – but he's not really what comes to mind when I think "journalist."
In his first piece, which appeared in last Sunday's edition of the Times, Bono takes a while before he gets down to business. The column wends its way through a description of the clinking glasses in an Irish pub, a mini-ode to Guinness, a painting in Bono’s Dublin home, and some passing remarks on the crummy economy before finally zeroing in on its true subject: Frank Sinatra’s voice.
While it’s clearly an earnest first attempt, the singer’s effort is drawing mixed reviews so far -- Phoenix writer Adam Reilly, for example, can't get over Bono's “overly florid writing.” Even in Rolling Stone's more favourable coverage, the writer admits it seems like a strange choice for the politically astute U2 frontman to devote ink to Sinatra when he could be discussing the recession or Obama.
I should come clean and confess that I stopped caring about Bono’s thoughts somewhere around the time he began sporting those ridiculous bug-eyed wraparound shades. Still, the personality is set to deliver somewhere between six and 10 columns to the Times in 2009, and I'm hoping he manages to use the platform for some good. Enough with the Sinatra! It’s time for Mr. Vox to get down to writing about what he knows. Let’s hope editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal was right when he hinted that columns on Africa and poverty are to follow…
--Lee Ferguson
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