KEEPING UP WITH HUPKKE
Columnist Rex Huppke talks about moving from the Chicago Tribune to a larger audience at USA TODAY By Mary Reardon
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rstwhile Chicago Tribune columnist Rex Huppke is settling into his new gig at USA TODAY. The “humor(ish)” columnist is from Florida, went through Indiana via a stint with The Associated Press and banked nearly two decades at the Trib. He’s also an adjunct professor at Loyola University Chicago, where he teaches feature and opinion writing. Huppke is a trained scientist with a degree in chemical engineering from Lehigh University. He found the science field “jarring” and took refuge in journalism, getting a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Huppke talked to E&P after a few weeks nesting in his new editorial home. Here are excerpts from the conversation. E&P: Chicago has a history of famous columnists. You’ve got Mike Royko, Roger Ebert, Clarence Page. Does your work draw upon their experiences?
Huppke: There’s a legacy of just amazing columnists in Chicago. Personally, I really felt lucky to have the chance to be a part of that scene. I used to read Mike Royko growing up in Florida. I grew up in Tampa. He was syndicated, and the Tampa Tribune carried Royko’s columns. There was always something about that that I liked. I wasn’t eyeing a career in journalism at that point. But I read all kinds of columnists: Anna Quinlan in The New York Times, Dave Barry, and Royko was one of them. When I did
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} A headline from a March 9, 2022 Rex Huppke opinion column for USA TODAY about the East Coast invasion of the Joro spiders
get up to Chicago and got to write stuff in the same spot that he did, I did not feel worthy of that by any stretch of the imagination, but it was pretty cool. E&P: Is there anyone you enjoy reading today?
Huppke: USA Today’s got some great people. Suzette Hackney is writing incredible stuff, and Connie Schultz, I really love. I really like Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri, who writes satire, which has been my wheelhouse. She’s amazing; I love her work. I try to read conservative voices and voices more along the lines of my worldview too. I’m on the more liberal side, and I try to get a little bit of everything, which hopefully, most of us do. I read several conservative columnists at The Washington Post, like Michael Gerson, Jennifer Rubin and George Will, and keep up on other right-leaning publications, like National Review. E&P: Looking at some of your recent columns, they include “Absurd trucker convoy has me rooting for higher gas prices.” Then you have “Texas’
transgender order isn’t a political winner; It’s cruelty writ large.” What kind of reader response do you typically get?
Huppke: This is my third week right now, so I don’t have a really great sense of that at this point. Readers are just getting to know me, and I’m getting to know them, so I can’t tell you that I’ve had a specific type of reaction. It’s a much larger audience, of course. Based on the feedback I’ve gotten from columns in the Tribune, I wouldn’t anticipate it being too dramatically different. Right now, in this country, people have pretty strong opinions on both sides of most issues. Generally, what I found — and thank goodness for this — is that most of the responses I get to the columns are positive. Usually, especially when I’m writing something that’s humorous or satirical, people seem to appreciate having a chance to laugh about something that might otherwise be a bit scary or whatever. And then, there’s also a smaller undercurrent of grumbling and calling me bad names. If you’re a columnist and you’re only getting positive feedback, you’re not columnizing very well. editorandpublisher.com
