At the New York Times I read what I can only describe as the oddest obituary I’ve ever read. It’s the obituary of a career, in this case the journalistic career of Liz Smith, legendary gossip columnist:
She has a laptop, but she doesn’t like it. She has an electric typewriter, which she bought after her stroke at the suggestion of Tom Hanks, a friend, but it sits on the floor because she does not have a desk.
She has her wits, though words sometimes elude her or come out sideways. She even has a column of sorts, which she writes with her longtime collaborator, Denis Ferrara, for a website called New York Social Diary.
What she does not have is a column in a New York tabloid, the Via Veneto of the gossip world. Since The New York Post dropped her in 2009, she has been a herald without a proper platform, rejected by the media names she helped make boldface.
She pleaded with Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Post, not to drop her — no soap.
She offered herself to Mortimer B. Zuckerman, owner of The Daily News, the paper where she made her name. “I said, you have nothing to lose, you don’t even have to pay me a salary,†she said — no soap there, either.
What’s the use of a gossip columnist when you have Facebook? And Google?
