Copy editors usually ask a lot of questions. But this past weekend, at the annual American Copy Editors Society convention, those questions weren’t just about sloppy copy. They were about how copy editors fit into a newsroom where breaking stories are posted online first.
Those questions come at a time when copy editors are stretched thin. When their work is being outsourced to India, China and the Philippines. And when they’re largely an afterthought in the process of posting content online.
“A lot of reporters are filing directly to the Web, without anyone editing a story,” Detroit Free Press recruiting and development editor Joe Grimm, who also writes Poynter’s “Ask the Recruiter” column, said. “That gets the material out fast, but it has mistakes in it.”
The Web staff can usually fix them quickly, he said. But when RSS feeds pull the first version of a story, those mistakes are permanently recorded.
Kathy Schenck, assistant managing editor for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel copy desk, said that reporters at the paper file their blogs directly to the Internet. There just aren’t enough copy editors to go around, she said.
“In one instance, one of our reporters was blogging about something that would never ever have passed the taste test in the paper,” Schenck said.
The Journal‘s dayside copy editors check blogs of the day’s local news several times an hour, after they’re posted.
“[Copy editors] find a fair number of mistakes,” Schenck said. “I wish we had enough people to edit all that stuff, but we don’t. But I’d rather see typos there than in the paper.”
The rest of the Journal‘s Web-only content is edited by a line editor, which seems to follow the standard at most papers.
Chris Wienandt, ACES president and business copy-desk chief at The Dallas Morning News, said he thinks leaving copy editors out of the process reflects an online model in its infancy.
“We’re disrespecting online readers by not giving them the same level of editing,” he said. “I think people expect a newspaper site to be an extension of the newspaper, so I think the quality of the editing and thoroughness of the editing on the Web site should match the thoroughness of the editing that you get in the newspaper.”
Wienandt says within the Morning News newsroom, each department handles copy editing the Web differently — an issue the newsroom will be looking at in the coming months. For the business department, he says, the copy editors replace Web stories posted earlier in the day with an updated story that will appear in the print edition the next day.
Grimm says he’s seen copy editors at newspapers including the Free Press take on a role of online news editors, who gather feeds from reporters and assemble their stories.
“We copy editors have always been the people who have pulled things together, put them together and made sure everything’s as seamless as possible.”
Vicki Krueger, editor of News University, (a partnership between the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Poynter) attended the conference and said whatever that model may be, copy editors want to be included.
“They want to be in that process,” she said. “They want to write an engaging, creative headline, they want to make sure the copy is clean, and I think they want to go back to their newsrooms to further those conversations about the online newsroom.”
The Buzz at ACES
Here are a few other topics that were the talk of the conference:
From Joe Grimm, who led a session on the outsourcing of copy editors:
We’ve seen more efforts to train journalists in India and China to write for U.S. publications. The bottom line is the issue isn’t with China or India or the Philippines. It’s the whole globe. Work can be outsourced anywhere in the world. Anywhere it can be done cheaper.
For copy editors, it means we need to gravitate toward more sophisticated work that can’t easily be outsourced. Anything that requires us to be in the room, which would be activities like working directly with editors and reporters, controversial issues, slotting issues, writing excellent headlines, and in some cases, copy editors might be asked to coordinate with overseas editors.
The other thing is, I think copy editors would do well to develop themselves as a brand. Not somebody who’s a plug-and-play copy editor, but someone who’s a unique talent that can’t be replaced by anyone else, here or overseas.
Copy editors should look for ways where they can be involved in the creative end of the process, rather than just controlling the process. They can have ideas just as well as anybody else — that would make that safer and give them more job security.
From Casey Frechette, NewsU’s interactive learning producer:
Most striking to me about the 2007 ACES conference was the focus on ways the Web will change how news is edited. For a group with backgrounds mostly in print, these conversations mixed excitement and apprehension, with a generally upbeat tone. Sessions in the conference’s online track were usually the most well-attended, with standing room only at several. And discussions about the impact of the Web often framed other sessions, such as a conversation about embracing innovation.
I saw four themes in conversations about the shift to the online delivery of news:
Delivering news online doesn’t diminish the need for copy editors; it increases it. So long as text remains a key ingredient in the presentation of news, copy editors will continue to serve a vital role in ensuring the accuracy and accessibility of content, many conference-goers expressed. And because the Web in many cases increases the volume and variety of text produced, the need for sharp editing is all the more essential.
Change in the industry is inevitable, but copy editors must find a strong, unified voice if they are to shape this transformation. I sensed no consensus about where journalism will stand in five or 10 years, but most agreed that the industry is changing and will continue to evolve into the foreseeable future. Many expressed certainty that copy editors can affect these changes, but only if they find a common voice in how the values and skills unique to their craft are applied to new models of producing journalism, models informed largely by the characteristics of the Web.
Many core skills are relevant, if not vital, in the digital age, but some new skills must be acquired. There was a strong sense that most of the well-worn skills at the core of a copy editor’s toolset apply as much online as in print. Fact-checking, critical thinking and other skills will continue their important roles in the editing process. Equally apparent, though, was the feeling that the Web will necessitate some new insights. The marks of a good headline, for example, differ significantly between print and online, with the latter often requiring headlines that work with little or no additional context.
Copy editors have much at stake as variations of the ‘continuous news desk’ continue to emerge. Perhaps most significant to changes in copy editors’ day-to-day workflow is the emergence of the 24-hour news cycle, spurred by online delivery. Many conversations at ACES reflected on how evolutions of the traditional news cycle will affect copy editors’ hours, interactions with reporters and other staffers and even their core workflows. Since a standard model for producing journalism in a print/online hybrid world has not yet surfaced, exploring this area was of keen interest to many attendees.
And more from Vicki Krueger, editor of NewsU :
The thing that just impressed me was that folks did not seem beaten down. I mean, there’s some concern about the industry, but there’s still just such a passion and love for the craft and this desire to put out good work.
There was a lot of interest in how online would come into play, and every paper seems to be different.
I didn’t get an overwhelming sense of despair, and at any print convention you kind of expect the feeling that people are doomed. I got this great sense for love of language, love of the craft. And I was grateful for the free coffee.
