A lot like all jobs. There are a few curiosities about column writing that readers probably don't even notice. Most of them have to do with style. In journalism, the term style has nothing to do with what we wear to work. Also, it has little to do with the way thoughts are expressed, in the sense of Hemingway's having a distinctive style of writing.
Style varies from one newspaper to another.
Most newspapers do that, but not The New York Times and not the Wall Street Journal. I don't know if anybody on the planet is named Harvey J. Pupek. That name just came to me as an example, and I like the sound of it. Because my deadline for Thursday comes on Wednesday, and so on Wednesday I often have to pretend that I'm writing in the future. It's one of those times when writing a column is an easy job.