Saturday, November 14, 2009

TSMW Remembers Jim Knippenberg

Sad news to report, as we noted via our twitter yesterday afternoon.

Jim Knippenberg, the Enquirer's gossip columnist for 37 years before his retirement last year, has died. He was 63 years old.

The Enquirer reports in the above link that he had been ill for several days - but it doesn't appear to be flu-related. It's not clear what illness he may have had.

Knippenberg is, as we note, best known for 37 years as the "man about town" who would, as he said in a column:

"...go to stuff – parties, benefits, restaurant openings, cast parties on opening night, hot new nightspots. All the time, just trying to keep up with who’s doing what around town. Then, I report back to readers who wanted to get to that glitzy party but had baby-sitter problems or the sniffles or too bad a day at work.

“Ideally, this yields columns full of names of interesting people doing interesting things.”


For those 37 years, if you wanted to know who was doing what and where in Cincinnati...the "Psst!" column was where you looked to figure that out.

Knippenberg could do it all. He was a copy boy from 1965 to 1968 for the paper. He left there to teach journalism for three years at Newport Central Catholic - but couldn't stay away, and in 1971 rejoined the Enquirer as a general news writer, eventually rising to his position as a columnist and editor, and the rest is history.

By the way, you can view Knippenberg's columns from 1996-2003 via this link. And here's a well done tribute by current Enquirer TV critic John Kiesewetter.

We here at TSMW extend heartfelt sympathies to his friends, family, and colleagues...

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