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Let Us Praise Copy Editors, and Then Bury Them
When it comes to cuts at newspapers, there's only one group of people more likely to get it in the neck than reporters.
It's copy editors.
Copy editors are the firewall between the reporter, who's more often than not working under an impossible deadline, and the rapidly dwindling population of newspaper readers. They're the ones who spot the difference between the hastily spelled it's and its, beats the reporter who consistently mixes of up loose and lose (my own bugaboo for many, many years), and knows that the inappropriate use of to, two, and too and can change the meaning of an entire article, let alone a sentence.
The use of spell check in a newspaper environment is well-nigh useless. It might be able to pick up that you misspelled the name "Eduard," but what if the guy in the picture actually spells his name "Edward"?
Copy editors are also responsible for making sure the "jumps" are correct. When a front page article states that the story is concluded on page 12, who do you think makes sure that it does actually finish on page 12 and not, say, page 14? Or even better, makes sure that the second half of that article appears anywhere in the paper at all?
Without copy editors, newspapers would have to rely on reporters to make sure the copy is clean. Considering that a reporter's life is nothing but insane deadlines already, and that most reporters can't spell worth shit, I can say with great sarcasm, "Yeah. That's a plan that'll work out so very well."
That's why this article from the Washington Post Ombudsman makes me irrationally angry. He starts off well in pointing out how the constant cutting of copy editors have hurt the quality of the writing at the Washington Post. (Yes, it's true. Behind every top-notch writer is an editor with a bullwhip.)
Then he ends it with a whimpering (and I'm paraphrasing here): "The wussy copy editors are saying that the increase in content flowing through their department, coupled with the cuts we've made in the copy desk, are going to hurt quality. But it's not true! Because it'll all balance out thanks to technology! Just be patient and know that we know that we're making our newspaper painful to read! Oh, and while you're at it, could you let us know when you see a factual inaccuracy or typo so we can fix it on the Web site? Thanks."
Quoth my not-so-inner ex-reporter self: Fuck. You.
The Fred Clark over at the Slacktivist, himself a newspaper man, shares my sentiments. Of course, he's a whole lot more polite about it than I am, even if he is about a step away from saying, "Jesus wept."
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a deadline to race for my Remix fic.
It's copy editors.
Copy editors are the firewall between the reporter, who's more often than not working under an impossible deadline, and the rapidly dwindling population of newspaper readers. They're the ones who spot the difference between the hastily spelled it's and its, beats the reporter who consistently mixes of up loose and lose (my own bugaboo for many, many years), and knows that the inappropriate use of to, two, and too and can change the meaning of an entire article, let alone a sentence.
The use of spell check in a newspaper environment is well-nigh useless. It might be able to pick up that you misspelled the name "Eduard," but what if the guy in the picture actually spells his name "Edward"?
Copy editors are also responsible for making sure the "jumps" are correct. When a front page article states that the story is concluded on page 12, who do you think makes sure that it does actually finish on page 12 and not, say, page 14? Or even better, makes sure that the second half of that article appears anywhere in the paper at all?
Without copy editors, newspapers would have to rely on reporters to make sure the copy is clean. Considering that a reporter's life is nothing but insane deadlines already, and that most reporters can't spell worth shit, I can say with great sarcasm, "Yeah. That's a plan that'll work out so very well."
That's why this article from the Washington Post Ombudsman makes me irrationally angry. He starts off well in pointing out how the constant cutting of copy editors have hurt the quality of the writing at the Washington Post. (Yes, it's true. Behind every top-notch writer is an editor with a bullwhip.)
Then he ends it with a whimpering (and I'm paraphrasing here): "The wussy copy editors are saying that the increase in content flowing through their department, coupled with the cuts we've made in the copy desk, are going to hurt quality. But it's not true! Because it'll all balance out thanks to technology! Just be patient and know that we know that we're making our newspaper painful to read! Oh, and while you're at it, could you let us know when you see a factual inaccuracy or typo so we can fix it on the Web site? Thanks."
Quoth my not-so-inner ex-reporter self: Fuck. You.
The Fred Clark over at the Slacktivist, himself a newspaper man, shares my sentiments. Of course, he's a whole lot more polite about it than I am, even if he is about a step away from saying, "Jesus wept."
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a deadline to race for my Remix fic.
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They're using passive voice, when what they should be saying is "Newspapers are committing whiny, slow-motion suicide, and the more they whine, the less anyone cares."
Yes, sloppy shit passing as "typos" makes me angry.
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Only if they're going to pay me. Sheesh.
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Granted, this was an advance reader's copy, so I'm holding out hope that someone will find and fix the error before it's too late. But I'm not optimistic.
As for the newspapers, I've completely given up on the distinction between "may" and "might," and it's a lucky day when most of the articles I want to finish reading are actually continued where they say they're going to be continued. Or, as you point out, continued at all.
The really sad part is that newspaper copy editors got paid shit to begin with. How much are the newspapers even saving with these cuts?
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My company employs a department of copy editors (though we call them "proofers"). They are the fucking whipping children of the company (or at least, my department). Half of what goes wrong, my boss blames on the proofers. Most of the complaining going on is about the proofers, how they can't do their jobs, how they never know what's going on, how easily confused they are. . . .
And I spend most of that time wanting to stand up and smack the complainers.
The proofers at my company are often not just fixing our mistakes, from reporters, news editors, production, the library, even advertising. Half the time they're fixing errors made by the source document writers (which don't ask me why we don't say "sic", except that sometimes there have been so many folks reprinting things before we get our hands on them that it's impossible to say whose "sic" is whose). They have to keep track of formatting styles for hundreds of different types of articles (which we in the production department have the advantage of a) seeing how decisions for formatting changes are made and b) tons and tons of guidebooks, neither of which the proofers have access to), they have to spend all of their time going over tax documents with a fine toothed comb -- and I don't know many people who can honestly say that tax documents don't make their eyes cross.
Steps have been taken in my office to cut the proofers out of the loop entirely on some document types because they "can't be trusted" to properly proof the new format for the documents. The people who run the OCR division are doing it, instead. This is, IMO, an entirely ridiculous and purposeless move, perpetrated by a woman who is terrified of being made honestly obsolete in a way which the proofers could not be.
It's absurd. And it saddens me to see that this is not just happening at my company, which primarily provides reprints rather than original documents, but with leaders in information and news distribution as well.
The reporters losing the copy editors are being done a great disservice. I'm just grateful that, so far, my company has not laid a single proofer off.
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