Author: John McIntyre
Published: September 01, 1999
Last Updated: September 23, 1999
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On copy editing

Some suggestions on mediating between the desks

Every writer remembers vividly the conception of a story, its long gestation, and the prolonged and painful labor by which it was delivered into the world — my story, my child.

Then some copy editor walks up and says, “Umm-UMMMPH, that’s one ugly baby you’ve got there.”

However much we want to be professional, distanced and objective, however much we remind ourselves that stories are things we created, not our selves, challenge and criticism feel personal. At newspapers, where many assigning editors appear to see their roles as lobbyists for the story and advocates for the writer, challenge and criticism from copy editors look like personal reflections on them, too.

Copy editors, chafing at the anonymity and lack of respect they have typically endured, take it personally when they get short shrift from writers and editors. There is also the melancholy truth that copy editors have a congenital tendency to spend disproportionate energy on trivial points and to transmute guidelines into inflexible rules.

Some newsrooms are able to keep these inherent tensions within bounds; at others there is a continual and distracting friction, at some outright antagonism.

When an editing question becomes a personal issue, the result is a struggle to prevail, from which the loser emerges smarting from defeat and vowing to prevail the next time. The person who suffers most from antagonism is not the writer or assigning editor or copy editor, but the reader, who does not get the best work the paper can do.

These tensions, when minor, can be worked out among the people immediately involved. When complaints are repeated over time and the atmosphere turns poisonous, it becomes the responsibility of the ranking editors of the paper to step in.

As ranking editors, you should insist on these things:

• Everyone is entitled to an opinion. The writer has a stake. The assigning desk has an interest. The copy desk has a responsibility to raise questions. Ban the defensive remark, “My editor approved it, so why do you have questions about it?” from newsroom discourse.
• Everyone gets heard. A valid question is valid, no matter who asks it and no matter at what point in the process. Tell reporters that questions from the copy desk are to be considered seriously and answered courteously. Tell copy editors to respect the intentions of the writer and the assigning desk.
• Everything is up for discussion. Yes, copy editors focus on spelling, punctuation, grammar and house style, but that is the beginning, not the limit. Newspapers are moving away from inverted-pyramid stories to longer articles with more sophisticated structures and varied tones. As that happens, questions about structure, narrative strategy, metaphor and voice become germane, and copy editors should be free to raise them.
• The story comes first. When a dispute that looks like a struggle to prevail makes its way on appeal to you, you must refocus the discussion on what works and does not work in the story, not on who wins. And get your people to talk to one another.
• The story belongs to the newspaper. The reporter does the primary work and gets the byline to indicate that primacy, but the story is published by the paper, not the author, and the paper has institutional responsibility for it. Tell your editors that they are expected to edit.