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Three-Dot Journalism

"Three-Dot Journalism" is an expression generally attributed to Herb Caen, the long-time—from 1938 to his death in 1997—and influential—he won the Pulitzer Prize—columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. Mr. Caen described this kind of journalism as a column filled with short items such as one-liners, gossip, and anecdotes. The style was very popular in American newspapers in the 1930's and 1940's, which was the era when he first started writing his column.

Among Mr. Caen's other coinages is the term "beatnik."

How It's Used

"As you can tell by the faux pseudo fake style of the introductory note, I was a devotee of The New Yorker in those far-off times [when I first started writing a column] and was attempting to ape that magazine's Talk of the Town, which went heavy on the editorial 'we' (it took me a long time to realize there is no law against 'I,' no matter how irritating it becomes). At the same time, I was enthralled by an entirely different stylist, Walter Winchell, the 'Bard of Broadway,' the 'gray Ghost of Gotham,' the handsome, silver-haired fellow who popularized, if he didn't invent, the rat-a-tat-tat three-dot column. His was the best; fast, furious, funny, sharp, nasty, opinionated and finally, when he seemed to be going bananas, erratic, crazed and crazy...

"Short items, a few scooplets, a good one-liner or two, that's what my kind of column is made of, and as my tribute to Mr. Winchell, I hope to keep three-dot journalism alive in a business that considers it hopelessly out of date. Hell, so am I, dot-dot-dot. You won't find many young journalists writing three-dot columns these days. For one thing, it's too much work."

"The San Francisco columnist Herb Caen, known for his frequent use of ellipses that he calls 'three-dot' journalism, has had a promenade named after him. Name of the promenade: 'Herb Caen Way...'"

"One of San Francisco's many nicknames is 'Baghdad by the Bay,' a moniker coined by the late legendary San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen. While the master of three-dot journalism may have had something else in mind altogether, the name took on a perversely ironic meaning in the wake of the first 'bunker buster bombs' dropped on Saddam Hussein's Baghdad. Thousands of anti-war protesters jammed the streets of San Francisco Thursday, making it nearly impossible for traders to get to their posts at the Pacific Coast Exchange and making it equally inconvenient for the many bankers, money managers and analysts to reach their offices housed in Montgomery Street high-rises. Throngs of 'Sixties-style protesters clogged the city's transportation arteries, bringing commerce and industry to a virtual halt for at least one day."

“Whether a historical drinking society or a drinking historical society, the Clampers claim tens of thousands of members in 40 chapters across seven Western states, though nowhere are the group’s strange ways more alive than in California, where members are said to have included Ronald Reagan; John Huston, the film director; and Herb Caen, the famous San Franciscan master of the three-dot journal.”

"Our own Shinan Govani is a serial ellipser; his 'three-dot journalism' is cribbed from the style often attributed to Herb Caen, the great San Francisco Chronicle columnist. You can get annoyed by it, you may prefer the comma or the dash, but you can't escape the ellipsis, unless you can suggest something better..."

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