Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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The copy desk
The people who put out your newspaper are organizing,
and they want to dispense with such stereotypes as the washed-up reporter
and the unlettered computer jockey
This article was adapted from a speech McIntyre delivered at the
Style and Substance Workshop of The Mid-America Press Institute in St.
Louis in April.
Y ou may have heard the story that Charlie Stough of the Dayton (Ohio)
Daily News tells about the managing editor of a Midwestern paper who fired
a reporter who was a liar, a cheat, and a thief. Some time later, this
M.E. got a call from the managing editor at an East Coast newspaper to
whom this reporter had applied for a job. "What kind of a reporter is he?"
the East Coast M.E. asked. "He is a liar, a cheat, and a thief," the Midwestern
M.E. answered. After a long silence came the question, "How do you think
he'd work out on the rim?"
No cliche has lasted longer than picture of the copy desk as an assemblage
of failures and obsessive-compulsive drudges.
A reporter at one Midwestern paper liked to refer to the process to
which his articles were subjected as "being run through the dull machine."
His originality as a writer lay mainly in mixed metaphors and non-Euclidian
uses of the comma. At an East Coast newspaper, a more sophisticated wielder
of the language referred to the process his copy underwent as "being run
through the Dullatron." That artist specialized in metaphors so grotesquely
inappropriate that he became known as "the Purplelizer."
The newsroom culture reflected in such attitudes was a profound impetus
toward the establishment last year of the American Copy Editors Society,
or ACES.
Our goals are to give copy editors a greater voice in their publications,
to sharpen professional skills, and to raise up a new generation of copy
editors. We recognize that the landscape is changing in newsrooms around
the country, but in the midst of adapting to change we need to protect
our franchise, to assure that editing in all its forms, microediting and
macroediting, does not get shouldered aside by the technicalities of pagination,
by neglect rising from ignorance of our role, or by false economies.
The first step is to make the value of our work more visible and insist
that it be given the respect it deserves.
The old attitude, that the copy desk is a depository for people whose
careers crash elsewhere but who can just manage to take a swipe at the
spelling and slap on a flat headline, is supplemented by a pernicious new
attitude, that with pagination, all a copy desk needs is a crowd of young
computer jockeys who can process type quickly and cheaply.
Neither attitude reflects an awareness of the range and depth of a copy
editor's responsibilities.
American newspapers are largely written in a journalese that is increasingly
removed from the way people speak and write, impenetrable bureaucratic
jargon, relentless cliches, with structurally unsound development, and
shocking lapses in English grammar and usage. These problems will not be
addressed by failed reporters or Quark whizzes. They will be addressed
when newspapers insist on employing copy editors who have news judgment,
an eye for the structure of a story, an ear for the language, and the tact
for getting cooperation from reporters and assigning editors.
Newspapers are finding, to their astonishment, that qualified copy editors
are scarce. Major papers have multiple openings that are going unfilled
for long periods. If that is the situation near the top of the food chain,
where the pay and the prestige, such as they are, are highest, what must
it be like elsewhere?
A major influence in these staffing issues appears to be pagination.
Despite the apprehension on many copy desks, pagination ought to be welcomed
in newsrooms. It gives copy desks more control, more precision and more
efficiency in producing newspapers. But it also typically brings with it
a demand for an increase in copy desk and design desk staffing, and apprehensions
have been amply justified at some papers that pagination would be attempted
without a staff adequate to the task.
This increase in demand may yet force newspapers to rethink the value
they put on copy editors and to seek the means to find, train, and retain
them.
It has always been the case that copy editors had to store up a large
reserve of general information to edit effectively, to master English grammar
and usage, to display a knack for writing headlines, to develop the ability
to concentrate in the clamor of the newsroom, and to draw on the stamina
to do grinding labor night after night. To these demands, newspapers have
added the requirement of facility with computers and the intricacies of
pagination. People with this combination of ability and temperament do
not lie thick on the ground.
So we come to the question of what is to be done.
In ACES, we hope to explore the prospects of working more closely with
journalism schools to make the training of copy editors more comprehensive
and effective. In many schools, copy editing is relegated to a single course,
and that one at an elementary level. We want to inquire whether journalism
schools might set up advanced courses in copy editing, and how their faculty
might be moved to encourage promising students to look into copy editing
as a career.
We want to work with newspapers to improve the quality of internships
for copy editors. Accumulating a string of internships during and after
college has increasingly become the way for young journalists to find their
way into the business. If we are to have more and better-trained copy editors,
we should look at programs such as the Dow Jones internship program and
Times Mirror's METPRO program to find out how to give aspiring journalists
a solid foundation in copy editing.
This may well mean longer internships for copy editors, because the
standard three-month summer internship looks increasingly inadequate. By
the time the intern has begun to grasp the operation of the newsroom computer
system, the elaborate formatting of copy, house style for copy and headlines,
and newsroom routines, the summer is over. Internships for copy editors
over a longer term, one to two years, show more promise in allowing apprentice
copy editors to develop into journeymen.
The law of supply and demand ought to operate in newsrooms. Good copy
editors are scarce and valuable. Pay them more.
And don't rely on money alone. Beef up internal programs of rewards
and recognition. If your paper has any perks available - tickets to sporting
events or concerts, restaurant coupons, weekend getaway packages - make
sure that copy editors are included in the distribution. Acquire a stack
of $50 American Express gift certificates and hand them out freely for
good catches or lively headlines. If you don't have ready money, reward
people with bonus days off.
If you fear that larger papers will drain all the talent from your copy
desk, then you have even more cause to reward and promote your best people.
To keep good copy editors, you have to give them reasons for wanting
to stay. Acknowledge the reservoir of ability and talent that you have
on your copy desk. Promote copy editors; let everyone see that the copy
desk is a route to advancement, not a cul-de-sac.
The best way to keep good people on the job - even with the anonymity
the stresses, the awkward hours, the vile days off - is to honor their
profound inner impulse to make things right, to foster the satisfaction
they generate from the work they do.
People who come voluntarily to the copy desk care deeply about the language
and about accuracy. (Yes, they can be sidetracked into maddening literal-mindedness,
but all occupations have their peculiar hazards.) You can find among them
commitment: a desire to establish order out of disorder, a sense of balance,
a thirst for clarity, a faith in reasonable discourse, and a joy in the
suppleness and vigor and elegance of the language we speak and write. For
them, editing is not merely a job but a calling.
Look for the people who hear that call, and honor all those who follow
it.
McIntyre is chief of the copy desk at The Sun, Baltimore and membership
secretary of the American Copy Editors Society.
Robinson, an editor for the Los Angeles Times/ Washington Post News
service on Long Island, N.Y., is president of ACES.
