.Quality Control
“What we are losing is editing. When I grew up, nothing could be communicated to the outside world without editing, getting your facts right, your spelling, etc. . . . That’s the worst part of it—the discipline that should go with the ability to communicate is gone.”
—Daniel Schorr, senior correspondent, National Public Radio, 2009
Editorial Comment: Oh, that.
.
It could get much worse. If there are no editors editing will editing still be taught? I've always felt that an editing course may be the best writing course a student takes. That's because when we edit someone else's work we read the copy for mistakes and ways in which it can be approved. And we apply that to what we write next. When we edit our own work we listen to our inner ear tell us what it was we wanted to have written in the first place and read right through the rough spots, learning little in the process.
ReplyDeleteI found one way to improve the writing of young reporters was to ask them to do some editing.
Peter
In posting this from Daniel Schorr, I thought of Peter Watson (above), my first real-world editor, along with the endlessly patient John Christie, at the Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, in 1976.
ReplyDeleteEditors help us all. Without them, bedlam. Because despite all the benefits of the Internet, I think that more is not at all necessarily better. News is to information as music, I think, is to noise. Someone has to make sense of it. That's the editor.
I agree completely. I've seen so many AP articles online with misspellings and omitted or doubled words... I just think to myself, "Give me a job. At least I'll make it look professional."
ReplyDeleteDid Peter, mean "approved" or "improved" in his comment about the editing blog? I think he meant the latter, making his sentiment quite ironic! :)
ReplyDeleteCaroline in Maine...
An AP story today and an SF Chron story yesterday, the reporters had indictments being handed down instead of up. Clearly, the world is coming to an end.
ReplyDeleteAs Mark Twain suggested, all editors should be shot.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, I agree with Dan Schorr. In fact, the San Jose Mercury News, once a meticulously edited paper, not long ago ran a photo of Willie Brown with a cutline that described Jerry Brown. These are two of the most famous politicians in the state. The difference between their photos could not be more black and white.
ReplyDeleteOUCH!!! That's painful/funny.
ReplyDeleteSo who *is* editing these days--print or b'cast? used to be the most experienced and knowledgeable people in the newsroom--for exactly these reasons. But my students remind me daily how lucky I am to be old and experienced. For six straight weeks running they could not identify more than two members of the U.S. Supreme Court.
And I guarantee you that if I put "Who is Joe Biden?" on a news quiz on Monday, half would get it wrong.
Editors, of course, are not to blame for societal ignorance, and it's too late for poor editors to be the canaries in America's knowledge mines.... But I'm betting few readers noticed McManus's Brown-Brown error. Or cared.