Word: ear
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...just any gossip column, you protest. This is Ear. And you don't read it to nose into the lives of D. C. superstars. It's not the talk of Joe Califano and his rooster pepper sausage, or the Rafshooning of America, or the latest a' deux in that little Georgetown cafe that makes the Washington Star's Ear so popular. It's the style, the "jolly pariah" attitude as Ear's creator Diana McLellan describes herself, the fast-paced staccato prose and irreverent wit that draws Ear's following...
...really have to follow the Ear if you want to be a real "Earwig." The first Ear can be incomprehensible, but with practice readers catch her tricks. When she goes wok shopping, that means someone is getting married. You notice the artful thread running through each tidbit in a day's column as if it were all somehow related. And you begin to get an idea who Uncle Oscar is. Now you're ready to quote Ear over your own personal gossip fence. Everybody else does it, after...
...example is in order. Not long ago King Hassan of Morocco breezed into D.C. A party in his honor ruffled feathers of those on the never-ending Washington party circuit, Ear claims, because "a) (the King) didn't show; b) it was a weeny bit in the basement; and c) that romantic word (on the invitation) something like 'Casbah' actually turned out to be 'Cash Bar'. Luckily, Uncle Oscar always carries...
Scene I, take two finds Diana as the Star's promotion writer a little later, then writing for society and home sections. Ear began in June of '75, and now she has a reservoir of sources, mostly phone contacts. She says she only hits one party a week. (Only one! we gasp. How does she ever choose?) The answer: "I usually pick the ones with lots of media people. They tend to be the best gossips...
...Ear turns the tables on the media people though and inks them up in her column right next to the government types. So ends the woes of journalists who regret spending all their time covering news and no time making news. Maybe journalism is making an advance. Well, maybe...