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Heartodixie	Post subject: Thanks for having me Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 12:24 pm
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2005 1:15 am Posts: 1432 Location: Alabamer	Well, it looks like I don't belong here at all now -- My paper officially moved me to the news desk, title salary and all. How better to squash my copy-editor carping and rank-and-file agitating? Dammit. What are your top commands if you could tell the news desk what to do? I had my own when I first moved over here, but they've become pretty fuzzy in the few months since I crossed over.
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Phillip Blanchard	Post subject: Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:37 pm
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2002 1:01 am Posts: 8342 Location: Bethesda, Md.	You still qualify as a news editor. Anyhow, you'd still be a fan.
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paulwiggins	Post subject: Re: Thanks for having me Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:11 pm
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 12:01 am Posts: 3137 Location: Homebush NSW Australia	Heartodixie wrote: Well, it looks like I don't belong here at all now -- My paper officially moved me to the news desk, title salary and all. How better to squash my copy-editor carping and rank-and-file agitating? Dammit. What are your top commands if you could tell the news desk what to do? I had my own when I first moved over here, but they've become pretty fuzzy in the few months since I crossed over. Make it short, make it early and make it up. Think of your reader. If you do that well enough you might get two of them.
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Wayne Countryman	Post subject: Re: Thanks for having me Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:46 pm
Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2002 12:01 am Posts: 1775 Location: Baltimore	At least don't become what some copy editors do when they're moved to other desks: the copy desk's worst enemy. Some act as if they must prove their new allegiances by going along with the worst practices of their new co-workers.
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Heartodixie	Post subject: Re: Thanks for having me Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 12:56 am
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2005 1:15 am Posts: 1432 Location: Alabamer	Wayne Countryman wrote: At least don't become what some copy editors do when they're moved to other desks: the copy desk's worst enemy. Some act as if they must prove their new allegiances by going along with the worst practices of their new co-workers. I don't think there's any danger of that. It's a universal desk that keeps the copy editors' hands full with page design and layout. So I'm basically the rim. And info-box-maker, suggested-hed writer (sorry, we need those here), composed-page-proofer, etc. Main reason I agreed to move is that I'm doing a ton more copy editing over here than'd be possible on the copydesk.
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Wabberjocky	Post subject: Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 2:20 am
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 6:47 pm Posts: 1734 Location: Washington	What exactly does your job entail, Heartodixie? "News editor" means different things at different papers. I was "news editor" at my current paper last year and was pretty much just the copy desk chief. Then I got downsized out of management ... into a raise and paid overtime. (Bless the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, which took me back with nary a hard feeling.) Best thing that ever happened to me professionally.
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Wayne Countryman	Post subject: Re: Thanks for having me Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 3:11 am
Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2002 12:01 am Posts: 1775 Location: Baltimore	Sorry if what I wrote seemed directed only at you, Heart. Was thinking of copy editors in general. I'm with Wabber in wondering about the stated responsibilities of your paper's news editor and news desk. Is having you do so much copy editing part of the plan, or are you just pitching in out of necessity or desire? A few of my papers combined the position of news editor and copy desk chief. That person tended to serve as night editor most nights, too. Two of those papers didn't even have a news desk; the city desk and copy desk divided duties every night.
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Heartodixie	Post subject: Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 1:25 am
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2005 1:15 am Posts: 1432 Location: Alabamer	Night editor's the title. So mostly rimming and making sure the ducks are in order as the paper's put together. Subbing for a colleague who's on extended leave. The universal desk business, especially when they're short handed over there, means I'm the final read on stories a lot of the time. Just like the last small paper I was at, the copy desk is the pagination desk, with all the editing and display-type-writing being done on the city desk, what I've been calling the news side. Sucks because I feel like nobody has my back. Just like I did on the copy desk. But I am learning that everything reporters and editors do has to be as perfect as possible, because there's no guarantee folks farther down the line are going to notice the errors. Well, so much for slinking away and becoming one of "them." I tried to stay away; I really did.
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[ 8 posts ]

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"This is like group therapy with prisoners in the Poynter Institute's dungeon." ... "You take a vocation that the simple-minded consider to be mere drudgery, and you exploit every bit of fascinating and humorous nuance imaginable." ... "Delicious" ... "Ask your professors? The only professors whose opinions matter are named Walsh, Blanchard and McIntyre." ... "What I come here for, I can find ONLY here. Phillip, you've built a great place." ... "Nothing gets us hotter than reading bitchy discussion threads from over-exhausted copy editors endlessly debating the merits of "theater" versus "theatre." ... "I love this site. It's better than the Kool-Aid acid tests." ..."I'm awed at the efficiency with which matters of opinion get hashed out in this forum." ... "Phil is the bomb!" ... "I'd wager that it's exactly your sort of hidebound thinking that contributes to the problems newspapers are having attracting readers." ... "I'm totally obsessed with this site. It's like porn--if you get off on Scrabble." ... "It reveals the backstage carping and vindictive emotions that roil the souls of those trapped at the copy desks." "When they say "testy," they certainly mean it. Whether it's reporters, editors, or the general public, no one is above their savage snark." ... "An apparent crack in the thin grey line." ..."Testy Copy Editors is a bitchboard for journalism's underclass." ... "My desire to read 'Testy Copy Editors' is only rivalled by my desire to pop "Constipated Call Girls" in the DVD player." ... "Phillip Blanchard is not just a testy copy editor, but a prophet scorned in his own time, and those of us who defend wordplay will be punished for it come the Judgment Day." ... "Phil Blanchard is as dashing in person as he is at the TCE board." ... "As far as writing and editing go: Read this board, read Bill Walsh, memorize the style book, read William Zinsser, and read the New York Times. That's a good start." ... "You should let go of your bitterness. You were not the oppressed talent you thought yourself to be. You were a miserable, brooding, silent, joyless grind, lucky to have a job at the Sun-Times, and we're lucky now that you've moved on to afflict others."

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