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| Stacey Shick and Alexander Zesch accept the runner-up award for the Tampa Tribune
in the staff category of the ACES
headline contest. Presenting the certificate is Bill Connolly, a member
of the ACES board and the contest committee. |
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By Matthew Crowley
They were ready for their close-ups.
As the American Copy Editors Society's ninth annual conference opened at the Hollywood
Renaissance Hotel, just a few doors from where the Oscars ceremony happened a few
weeks before, 487 editors from across the country convened to share ideas, attend
seminars and take a bow. For three days, rims, slots and students would shine.
Society Vice President Chris Wienandt told the audience at Thursday’s opening plenary
session that he was glad to see so many people
"When you all start arriving on Wednesday, I'm freshly stunned," he said.
"I'm immensely satisfied that you want to be here. You are the people that make
this work."
By the end of the conference, walk-in registrants had swelled the attendance total
to 504 -- 29 percent higher than the 390 last year in Houston and well above the
previous second-place total of 440 set in 2001 in Long Beach, Calif. The 1999 conference
in Dallas still holds the all-time attendance mark of 525.
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| Dean Baquet, managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, welcomes the crowd to Southern
California. |
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Before it began three days of learning (68 seminars)
the society stopped to honor cleverness, awarding a combined $2,250 in prizes in
its annual headline-writing contest.
In all, 240 people entered the contest.
The society also hailed consistency, awarding plaques to the eight people who’d signed
up for lifetime memberships.
In his State of the Society remarks, President John McIntyre detailed efforts to
teach copy desks of tomorrow. Scholarships --
five this year and 24 since 1999 -- have been awarded to student journalists interested
in pursuing editing careers. A nonprofit educational fund has been launched. A fund-raising
campaign to support more scholarships and educational programs will follow.
Also, McIntyre said, the society is talking with Poynter Institute’s News University
about providing material for electronic editing courses.
McIntyre implored the newest journalists, students and beginners, to seize their
chance.
“You will never have a better opportunity to talk to some of the most prominent editors
in our craft; they’re here,” he said. “Don’t be shy about approaching us, get to
the know the people who are here.”
McIntyre said ACES has arrived. As the conference opened, membership stood at 900,
a 28.5 percent increase from a year ago. There are now six regional chapters.
And, through work with Ohio University Professor Deborah Gump, the society had attracted
the Editing the Future
roundtable to run concurrently with the ACES' gathering. Editing the Future featured
Los Angeles Times Executive Editor John Carroll, New York Times Executive Editor
Bill Keller and Sacramento Bee Executive Editor Rick Rodriguez among its panelists.
Despite its growing strength, McIntyre said the society faced a conundrum: coping
with a journalismwide struggle to keep credibility.
“We are aware of a bitter irony that the moment at which we are increasing our visibility
and impact is also the very moment when our whole enterprise is under a shadow,”
he said. “To look at how newspapers have been the news, rather than reporters of
the news, in recent months and years is to imagine what perceptions the public must
have of us: We allow people to plagiarize. We make things up. We cook the books.”
Copy editors aren’t powerless, he said. He mentioned that a copy editor at the Duluth
(Minn.) News Tribune, a recent University of Kansas graduate, had caught a much ballyhooed
fabrication in a recent column by Detroit Free Press sports columnist Mitch Albom.
She found it, she corrected it, he said.
“We identify what is wrong and say ‘This will not do,’” he said.
McIntyre said he’d told the panelists at the Wednesday night Editing the Future session
to “let my people edit.” -- give them the resources, time and authority to succeed.
And, as he waved conference-goers into their first seminars, McIntyre told them to
learn what they can and to prepare to stand up for their craft.
“If we are to do our part in restoring the credibility of an trust in our publications,
we have to insist on performing our role,” He said. “Ours is to insist on our craft
and on carrying out our responsibilities."
Later Thursday, McIntyre announced a new $3,000 prize, named for society co-founder
Pam Robinson, to start next year. The Robinson Prize will
go annually to a copy editor whose exemplary work upholds the craft of editing. The
society will evaluate award nominees for a combination of elements including editing;
design; mentoring; and fostering a sense of teamwork and pride.
McIntyre said he hoped Robinson, who couldn’t attend the Hollywood conference, would
be on hand in Cleveland next year to bestow the first Robinson Prize herself.
Matthew Crowley is a business copy editor for the
Las Vegas Review-Journal.
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| Some of the nearly 500 attendees express their approval of the proceedings during
the opening plenary. |
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ACES President John McIntyre delivers his annual State of
the Society speech.
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STATE OF THE SOCIETY
The text of ACES President John McIntyre's address to the opening plenary session
of the ninth ACES conference, Thursday, April 21, 2005, in Hollywood:
The American Copy Editors Society has come of age.
As of today, the beginning of our ninth national conference, we have 900 members.
We have nearly 500 participants registered for this conference. (Editor's note:
Because of walk-in registrations, attendance rose to 504 and membership to 908 by
the end of the conference.) We have six regional chapters, the Southeast, Florida,
Ohio, Midwest, Southern California, and Northern California, and we have seen regional
chapters conduct their own mini-conferences and participate in events sponsored by
other journalism organizations.
We have awarded 24 scholarships to promising students eager to pursue a career in
editing. We have established a nonprofit, tax-exempt educational fund, for which
we will soon be launching a fund-raising campaign so that we can support scholarships
and further educational activities. The Executive Committee has given its approval
to our exploring a relationship with the Poynter Institute’s News University, in
which we will provide material for electronic courses on editing. Some of these will
be free to all, some at a cost that we expect will be discounted for ACES members.
In working with Professor Deborah Gump of Ohio University in setting up the Editing
the Future session, which is running concurrently with today’s morning sessions of
the ACES conference, we were able to attract panelists of note, among them John Carroll,
editor of our host paper and a loyal supporter of this society; Bill Keller, the
editor of The New York Times; and Rick Rodriguez, the incoming president of the American
Society of Newspaper Editors, the organization that fostered the establishment of
ACES.
My fellow editors, we have arrived.
And I will be making one further announcement this afternoon, when the participants
in the Editing the Future session join us for a joint plenary, that will show you
something more of what this society is doing to uphold editing.
And yet.
And yet we are aware of a bitter irony that the moment at which we are increasing
our visibility and impact is also the very moment at which our whole enterprise is
under a shadow. To look at how newspapers have been the news, rather than reporters
of the news, in recent months and years is to imagine what perceptions the public
must have of us:
We allow people to plagiarize.
We make things up.
We cook the books.
That shadow over newspapers also stretches over other media; magazines and electronic
publications cannot escape scrutiny.
Some of this is beyond our scope to influence. We don’t run circulation departments.
We don’t oversee reporters directly.
But we are not powerless.
Last night, I invited the editors at the opening of the Editing the Future session
to think of copy editors as functioning in journalism in the way that peer reviewers
work in scientific publications. We are professionals, trained in the craft, who
examine the work of colleagues, testing it for suitability for publication. We are
independent; we are impartial; we verify.
You have heard praise for Nikki Overfelt, a copy editor at the Duluth News Tribune
and a recent graduate of the University of Kansas, who caught the fabrication in
the notorious column by Mitch Albom and matter-of-factly corrected it. That is our
core responsibility: We identify what is wrong and say, “This will not do.”
If we are to do our part in restoring the credibility of and trust in our publications,
we have to insist on performing our role. Last night, I urged the Editing the Future
group, “Let my people edit.” That is their responsibility. Ours is to insist on our
craft and on carrying out our responsibilities to our publications, to our readers,
to the truth. This is my charge to you:
Stand up for editing. |
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