Can society manage without editors?

[rich]

How sad it is that careful editors are asking whether newspapers can afford editors!

Alas, do publishers also ask this question?

I, for one, find the thought disturbing.

Any writer who says copy editors are unnecessary has not yet been exposed to the embarrassment he or she may be forced to endure.

This also applies to publishers and those who speak for them.

But, of course, that does not mean foolish copy editors have a right to run roughshod over the work of writers. Some copy changes are not within the prerogative of any editor.

No editor had unimpeded authority to revise the language with which Walter Winchell presented his columns. No editor ever had or ever should have had the independent right to revise character descriptions by Herman Melville or Raymond Chandler. Nor ought editors ever be allowed to change the terms in which Newton, Einstein, Darwin couched — or other scientists continue to couch — theories, no matter how arcane. Yet, of course, all editors always have, and always have had, the duty and the right to question any expression believed to be in error, no matter who made it.

If a copy editor substitutes his or her bias for one held by the producer of copy it may be equivalent in its impropriety to a reporter changing a direct quote.

Copy editors, however, have a greater purpose than some people who occupy such positions seem willing to admit. It is the copy editor, after all, who acts as the final guarantor that the language he or she approves does what it is intended to do. To act as such a guarantor the copy editor has the obligation to know what he or she is doing.

If that copy editor is incompetent, the sorrow is greater and of broader impact than might be the case in almost any other occupation. After all, civilization, in a sense, depends on language. Language sustains all of culture, and to the extent that copy editors assist in defending and perfecting the usefulness of language the culture is dependent on them.

The copy editor truly is one of the guardians of language, and this is not copy desk spin.

Much that is important in life, communication, cooperation, the arts, science, virtually all coherent thought could not exist without the declarative sentence.

Forgive me, an old man no longer tied to the rim, for reminding you, the true carriers of the torch, that it still flames.

The copy editor through whom each word passes must be among those most responsible for the clarity and accuracy of each declarative sentence that is published.

As caretaker of language, the copy editor deserves gratitude for fostering benefits we attribute to culture and civilization, even those deriving from scientific innovation. All of science, after all, consists of descriptions that are weighed and tested for accuracy. Such descriptions all are made in the form of declarative sentences or their propositional equivalents. And the tests by which they are evaluated also are made in the form of declarative sentences or their propositional equivalents.

If copy editors foster intrinsically flawed declarative sentences they become enablers of scientific confusion and error. The arts, too, may fail as analytical decline encourages and enables counterfeits to be substituted for them. Education becomes more difficult at all levels, if language is compromised beyond its capacity to adapt.

So, if society must choose between incompetent copy editors and none at all, the latter probably would be preferred. But if society has the opportunity to choose between conscientious copy editors who pride themselves on competence (even though they know it to be imperfect), and doing without editors — in order to save time or money — it seems to me society would be wise to chose the editors.

Editors who are conscientious but aware of their imperfections probably would not make significant substantive or style changes without consulting any equally conscientious author. And Einstein’s position on ether, Quasimodo’s view of Esmeralda, or Raymond Chandler’s perspective on capital punishment would not be disputed in the wake of an unauthorized editorial change.

If publishers evaluate the usefulness of editors by looking only at the bottom line of a calculation that ignores what the copy editor really does in society, they may be pursuing consequences that will not serve anyone.

Or at least, that is the way I see it.

[Jim Thomsen]

Eloquently stated, Rich. I doubt your impassioned oratory would sway a group of bottom-lined-fixated executives, but it's well worth the try. Hell, even Daniel Webster talked Satan's jury around, so anything's possible.

[Dan Puckett]

Nicely stated, rich.

However, as we watch this industry contract and we try to maintain our place in it, I'm not sure that this is an argument that's going to sell publishers on keeping us around.

For one thing, it's not how I would really describe my worth to my newspaper. Do I occasionally clarify unclear sentences? Sure. Do I sometimes change a misused word to the proper one? Yes, of course. And yes, I fix a lot of style and spelling errors.

But that isn't how I spend most of my time at work, and that's not, I think, my main value to my employer.

Here are some things I did in the last two nights as slot:

-- I noticed that the lead story in one section was obsolete and replaced it with two, shorter stories that were current.
-- I noticed that a major story failed to back up the lede, and I got enough information into that story to support the lede.
-- I noticed that a business name was misspelled throughout a story and got it fixed.
-- I noticed that a map misidentified a major road and got it corrected.
-- I noticed that a wire story omitted a major historical fact, which I inserted.
-- I noticed a historical error in a local story and repaired it.
-- I made many headlines more specific and in some cases fixed errors in display type the desk or the designers had written.

That's what took most of my time the past two shifts, and that's the kind of thing I can point to the next day, saying, "Look at all the mistakes that would have been in your paper if not for copy editors."

And these are the kinds of mistakes I see most often. In my experience, reporters and their editors are at least competent at crafting clear declarative sentences; they need my help with that much less often than they need me to say: This is unfair, this is incomplete or this is inaccurate.

We each bring our own strengths to this job; in my case, I read a lot of history and I work in the city where I was born and raised, so I know a good deal about its history and geography and people. Most of my college education was in languages and linguistics, so I can see language errors that others on the desk might miss, but they in turn have other strengths and other fields of expertise.

What we all share, though, is our standing outside the generative process. We bring to the stories no background on their production, no agenda aside from a dedication to accuracy and clarity, no investment in protecting or attacking turf. We're the closest thing the newsroom has to impartial analysts of the news we're about to present; as much as possible, we see the stories the way informed readers will see them in the morning.

To the extent we can prevent those readers from losing their trust in our accuracy and objectivity, that's the real extent to which we're valuable to cost-conscious management. That's something quantifiable we can put in memos; that's a value we can prove we add to the product.

And if I'm going to try to justify spending however many thousands of dollars we cost the newspaper to maintain, that's the kind of argument with which I'll have much more expectation of success.

[rich]

Thank you for your kind words, Jim.

It would be great, I think, if any observations those of us on the sidelines make could help. But, I agree with you, our comments probably will be set aside before they even reach the desks of those controllers you describe so well. To revert to imagery used elsewhere, some of us already have become beasts on the ice floe.

But the point is: I do think good copy editors do everything I said they do.

And Dan, thank you, as well.
It was not my intention to take exception to those of your virtues that you extol, but only to point out that what you and your working colleagues do exceeds even the accomplishments in which you take the most obvious pride.

Nor am I sure that flaws in declarative sentence always are so easily detected as you suggest. I am reminded of Bertrand Russell's great 1905 essay "On Denoting," and the stir raise when G.E. Moore discovered the single ambiguity in it involving the verb "to write." To say that "Scott wrote Waverley" is not the same thing as saying "Scott is the author of Waverley" and this is a lesson I never have forgotten.

Unfortunately, I do not remember the last time I applied the notion when I was active on the desk.

[Jim Thomsen]

Dan, thanks for touting the idea of becoming a learned historian of the area in which you live and work.

I'm not such a brilliant wordsmith, as my posts here have surely made all but obvious, but I'm indispensable at my particular paper because I know my area cold. I make a dozen saves a week based on knowing the name of a sheriff from 1978 or a state football champion team's quarterback from 1973 or that Fay Bainbridge State Park was named after a man and not a woman. I know how to spell our many Indian-based place names, know about most of the major capital crimes here of the past 50 years or so and know the names of the vessels in our state ferry fleet — and on which routes they're running.

Again, I don't know these things because I'm so brilliant. I know them because a) I'm interested; and b) I figure it's my obligation to know. And taking editing actions based on that store of knowledge is the real way in which I prove my value to my paper, and thus ensure my job security. (At least until the next round of cuts.)

It has nothing to do with how long I've been in the business, where else I've worked, where I went to college or what awards I've won.

It has everything to do with passionately giving a shit.

[rich]

I'm not such a brilliant wordsmith, as my posts here have surely made all but obvious, but I'm indispensable at my particular paper because I know my area cold. ... Again, I don't know these things because I'm so brilliant. I know them because a) I'm interested; and b) I figure it's my obligation to know. ...

Please let me shrug at your disclaimer, Jim. Everybody knows that you have made some of the brightest and most penetrating observations of all in the discussions on this list.

It is difficult to imagine how your job can be other than pretty secure.

[Jim Thomsen]

You know what makes my job secure, really? The fact that I work the most undesirable hours you could get in this business.

[rich]

You know what makes my job secure, really? The fact that I work the most undesirable hours you could get in this business.

I worked that shift for years, but when I went through eye operations (during vacations), survived cancer treatments (mostly on my own time), and finally experienced lots of downtime following a heart attack, I found out my job was secure for other reasons.

I don't want to sound like the flying nun winning another academy award, so I won't tell you what they were. But I worked with some pretty fine people. The chief honchos held my job open and colleagues pitched in to cover for me in my absence.

Trust me, Jim, the security of your position may seem to be based on the reasons you cite, but I suspect you are very reliable and good at what you do. The people relying on you all those hours every day have a lot to do with it.

[dfisher]

Can we have large plaques made up for sale at Denver -- at least 72-point, perhaps larger -- to hang over the copydesks in all newsrooms:

It has everything to do with passionately giving a shit.

Thanks, Jim, for that.