"Fortunate"? Bonus: Must be a law of journalism I missed, that copy editors can't write about what copy editors do unless they complain that they work on deadline.
Quote:
After all the uncertainty about the presidential race and the fears of an uncertain outcome like the one in 2000, the news media were fortunate that this particular contest wasn't quite as close as predicted. We at The Frederick News-Post were doubly fortunate to have a comparatively late deadline for the Eastern time zone -- 1 a.m. Wednesday. So we went to press with a definitive headline, "Obama wins 2nd term," unlike some papers in the eastern U.S. that had to hedge their bets.
For all the solid planning and staggered deadlines set up for election night, the reality is that things change, reporters are updating stories on the fly, editors are working as fast as they can, and the copy desk gets a lot of important stories at the same time and late at night. For copy editors, it can be frustrating that the constraint of time prevents us from polishing the writing -- that is, fixing the little things in these big stories. But I realize that this is a quibble, and an occupational hazard.
[
Frederick, Md., News Post]