columnist

A columnist is a writer with a regular opinion piece in a paper. The same name, the same slot, every week.

What separates a columnist from a reporter is that opinion is the job rather than a failure of it: a reporter tells you what happened, and a columnist tells you what to think about it. The piece itself is a column, named for the shape it once had on the page. Papers keep a stable of them — a political columnist, a gossip columnist, an agony aunt answering letters. The role survives online, where a columnist now often has a newsletter instead of a page.