Opinion directs the boot of truth at the crotch of power. Long may it sting | Simon Jenkins

After Baltimore's raucous HL Mencken died, some felt the age of the column was over. Yet today news is the endangered species

Are you Beatles or Beethoven? Chelsea or Arsenal? Mencken or Montaigne? You can supposedly tell people by their taste in fads and gurus. In the case of columnists there is a clear choice. Sensitive, cerebral, me-me writers go for Montaigne, the 16th-century sage of Bordeaux. Rat fink reporter types go for the scourge of Baltimore, HL Mencken, whose collected Prejudices ...