Straw Poll

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Sun Jun 27, 2004 3:50 pm

I was a reporter for my college paper, but then the sponsor went on leave and said I was the only person she could trust to run the show during her sabbatical, and I was relegated forever to the anonymous world of editing.

juliette14 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 27, 2004 3:53 pm

I'm a copy editing intern right now, and I spent two summers as a reporting intern. I can't get enough of the polishing and precision editing requires. I like reporting and I like talking to people, but I much prefer working as a gatekeeper and trying to keep stupid mistakes out of the paper. I worked as a reporter and editor on all levels at my college paper, and I feel I serve best at this level. And I'm anal-retentive enough for it. I like to protect the credibility of the paper by excising stupidity.

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Sun Jun 27, 2004 5:58 pm

Enjoyed reporting. When offered the copy desk I said show me the money. They did. University holidays stripping galleys and burning printing plates left me with a love of printing that I'd have to say today's technology would not inspire.{revised to add the love of the process bit}[ June 27, 2004: Message edited by: Paul Wiggins ]

Bolder1 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 27, 2004 6:23 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by slummingreporter:
What sort of experience (good? bad? ugly? non-existent?) have you guys had on the reporting side of things? What sort of experiences made you guys decide that the copy desk was the place to be? Inquiring minds, that's all.G<hr></blockquote>Liked being a reporter, sometimes loved it, sometimes hated it. I like being an editor, but rarely love it or hate it. I was a reporter for a large paper, and now I'm an editor for a larger one, and I've been treated well in both jobs. Obviously reporters get more respect, as they should. It's more demanding and requires you to put more of yourself on the line. Generally as a reporter you'll have a more personal relationship with the top editors, whereas copy editors are pretty interchangable.I do know that I work about 50 percent as hard. Or, I should say, I work just as hard but put in about 50 percent of the hours, becaure reporting involves a lot of off-the-clock fretting, calling and meeting with sources.Someday I expect I'll go back to writing but editing is a better fit for me right now in my personal life. Just have a lot of things going on and I don't feel like devoting so much time to my work.

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Sun Jun 27, 2004 6:55 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bolder1:
. Obviously reporters get more respect, as they should. It's more demanding and requires you to put more of yourself on the line. .<hr></blockquote>Might I venture a word of disagreement at this juncture?

mdid · **Joined:** Thu Mar 18, 2004 1:01 am **Posts:** 27

I work for a small weekly. So, I am a reporter as well as a copy editor. My least favorite part of reporting is the constant calling and checking in with people.

Lee · **Posted:** Sun Jun 27, 2004 7:26 pm

I did not decide to be on the copy desk; it was decided for me.
<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bolder1:

Obviously reporters get more respect, as they should.<hr></blockquote>
I thought I was damn good as a young reporter but I did not ever think the copy desk deserved less respect. In fact, the copy editors at the paper I wrote for were all senior journalists who were much more experienced than me. They were the people I learned from and respected most.

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Sun Jun 27, 2004 7:27 pm

Might one venture a word of agreement at this juncture?

SusanV · **Posted:** Sun Jun 27, 2004 7:44 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bolder1:

Obviously reporters get more respect, as they should. <hr></blockquote>
I could not disagree more. <blockquote>quote:<hr>Generally as a reporter you'll have a more personal relationship with the top editors, whereas copy editors are pretty interchangable.<hr></blockquote>That sure doesn't apply where I work, but I concede that it's probably a very different environment overall.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Sun Jun 27, 2004 8:59 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bolder1:
... I do know that I work about 50 percent as hard. Or, I should say, I work just as hard but put in about 50 percent of the hours, becaure reporting involves a lot of off-the-clock fretting, calling and meeting with sources.
<hr></blockquote>Some people might think doing the same amount of work in half the time would be harder work. Others wouldn't. Some can't or don't want to edit that fast for that long (a particular problem at smaller papers and an increasing number of larger ones). Others suffer more with the stretched-out hours many reporting beats demand. It's a matter of personal preference -- or, dare we cleesh-say -- a comparison of apples and oranges.To get back to the question of becoming a copy editor:I did what was needed by a paper, beginning at an early age. I've never known of a paper that had enough good copy editors. (If someone knows of one, please let me know.) At times I wish I were reporting, but not enough to free-lance more than a few times in the past two decades. Such an attitude will block copy editors from advancing within many papers, especially if they lack many years of reporting experience.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Sun Jun 27, 2004 9:06 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bolder1:

Generally as a reporter you'll have a more personal relationship with the top editors, whereas copy editors are pretty interchangable.
<hr></blockquote>A copy editing staff whose members are "pretty interchangeable" probably is very good or very bad. Desks tend to have variations beyond uniform mediocrity.Copy editors are more often perceived as interchangeable than is true: different strengths and weaknesses, different styles, different preferences. Slot editors and copy desk chiefs will know whether these exist. So will the copy editors.At most papers, most copy editors work at night, including weekends and holidays -- times when upper management won't be around to get to know them. Dayside copy editors might work in a outpost far from a newsroom's command central.The mistakes of the weakest members will taint the entire desk.[ June 27, 2004: Message edited by: Wayne Countryman ]

DominEditrix · **Posted:** Sun Jun 27, 2004 9:24 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by slummingreporter:
What sort of experience (good? bad? ugly? non-existent?) have you guys had on the reporting side of things? What sort of experiences made you guys decide that the copy desk was the place to be? <hr></blockquote> I started out ghosting reviews/interviews for my first husband, the music critic, because he hated folk music. The paper [small, new, vaguely alternative] lacked a designated copy editor and was rife with errors and stupid heds. I made a derogatory comment to the editor at one point, was hit with "I bet you couldn't do any better" and set out to prove him wrong. As I'd spent years proofing galleys and devising chapter headings for my father's work, it was a decent fit, tho' the salary was negligible. [It never got much better, tho' the paper became somewhat successful.] Later on in my career, I was a free-lance writer, did a considerable amount of science article ghosting, copy-edited professional publications for some years and became a science reporter [paid better and I got to hang out at JPL, amongst my fellow geeks.] In my quasi-retirement, I free-lance, usually books, occasionally write snarky explanations of copyright law and the First Amendment for the legally-challenged, and produce a guild newsletter.[Oh, yeah - in a fit of midlife crisis, I went to law school, and endured 15 years of clients, some stellar, most not, before deciding that, whilst I like law, I really don't like people... I did, however, learn to launder money from Barry Rider, an expert in international crime.]D.

pzicari · **Posted:** Sun Jun 27, 2004 11:02 pm

I was a reporter for five years and have been an editor for 23, by preference -- though the schedule sucks sometimes. I could never get used to being lied to, and never took much joy in pursuing liars ... among other things. While it's true many editors don't have an especially personal relationship with the Powers that Be, many reporters don't, either. Those are usually the guys who, when they go on vacation, leave editors scrambling to fill holes and handle page elements that the Powers that Be ordained and forgot about. It's the stars who get more respect than copy editors get. The editors, who see them in their underwear, so to speak, are best suited to say whether they deserve it. Read up on Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley and ask yourself who you'd rather believe.

JayByrd · **Posted:** Mon Jun 28, 2004 12:16 pm

I was a reporter for 15 years at several small dailies and a few weeklies, all in competitive markets. I moved to editing about the same time pagination came along, in part because the so-called "copy desk" acquired almost total control of what the paper contained (as far as non-staff stories) and what it looked like the next day.
As a reporter in the '70s and '80s, I was expected to produce two bylined stories per day plus all the little-shit crap coming out of my mutiple beats. Our reporters today don't even average one story a day, and all the "little-shit crap" is done by the city editor. Plus, reporters today can do much of their research online, whereas not too long ago I had to talk to people, go to the library and dig through filing cabinets.
Today as a copy editor I'm working at about the same tempo as when I started my career. It just seems like everyone else in the newsroom has slowed down.

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Mon Jun 28, 2004 12:36 pm

When they offered me a job on the news desk, I was editor of a 1 2/3-person sports department, though I'd also done a fair amount of GA reporting. I figured I wouldn't have to drive all over hell and back anymore (true), I'd work fewer hours (true -- but not by much) and I wouldn't have to listen to complaints about coverage (wrong).Seemed like a pretty good idea at the time, but all it did was give me a new set of frustrations.

Jolieblonde · **Posted:** Mon Jun 28, 2004 3:50 pm

I spent about five years as a reporter at a small paper in a competitive market before easing into copy editing, where I've happily been full-time for about 19 years. There were some things I liked about reporting (mostly the writing) but soon found out I was not cut out for reporting. I'm not a schmoozer, and don't have a steel-plated ego, which are invaluable skills for reporters. And I hated buddying up to sources just because I wanted the story. Also I reached a point in my career where I knew I would have to specialize in something to really advance, and I guess I'm too much of a generalist to be happy on just one topic---that's one thing I love the most about copy editing, the variety. And I hated the feeling that no matter how much I did, there was always so much more that could be done. There's a great deal of satisfaction in getting an issue out, and moving on. There were three specific incidents that helped me realize I wasn't cut out for reporting. One happened early in my careeer when a college classmate was a passenger in a huge plane wreck in Spain. Her family lived in our circulation area; I had known her fairly well, and had met her family on several occasions, though we weren't best of friends or anything. Anyway, my city editor asked if I wanted to talk to the family and do the stories as they waited to hear if she was a survivor (sadly Jayne didn't survive). I just couldn't do it, and thank god my editor understood. Another happened near the end when on the police beat I had to call the mother of a murder victim to get her reaction. God, that was awful. My very last day of reporting, I had to cover a drowning and stood by while the cops dragged the river. I just couldn't bring myself to talk to his friend who was waiting nearby. And I was so happy to hang up my reporter's notebook.

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Mon Jun 28, 2004 10:54 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by JJ:
Another happened near the end when on the police beat I had to call the mother of a murder victim to get her reaction. God, that was awful.
<hr></blockquote>That is awful, JJ. Did you have to break the news or did she already know?

Bumfketeer · **Posted:** Mon Jun 28, 2004 11:22 pm

I liked reporting, but I got sick of dealing with politicians and phony assholes firsthand....I was no longer able to hide my contempt for them. This sort of impaired my ability to appear unbiased.Then I found my attention span was growing too short to be able to focus on note-taking, and that I was often so disgusted with what people were saying that I couldn't bear to write it all down.Then I decided I wanted a job in which I would not spend the first hour in bed in a cold sweat trying to think what I would write about the next day.Thus my inversion of a standard career trajectory has been reporter to metro editor to editorial writer to copy editor. Which was cool, because when I was a metro editor and an editorial writer I really wanted to be a copy editor.And even though it often pisses me off, I love doing it. Really.[ June 29, 2004: Message edited by: Bumfketeer ]

lafollette · **Posted:** Tue Jun 29, 2004 10:19 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by DominEditrix:
I did, however, learn to launder money from Barry Rider, an expert in international crime.<hr></blockquote>
So...did you **learn from Barry Rider** how to launder money from others, or did you learn how to **launder money from Barry Rider**?I'm guessing that one would've put you in greater esteem with the criminal than the other.Sorry; had to do it.

Jolieblonde · **Posted:** Tue Jun 29, 2004 11:04 am

Oh she already knew. And of course I only called because my city editor insisted. Between sobs she could barely get anything out. It was a very interesting case though. Some macho guy picks up another patron at a gay bar, and they go to the second guy's home. Second guy, who's really thin, small guy, supposedly makes a pass. First guy, a big, beefy Vietnam vet who claims to be hetero, claims he felt threatened, claims second guy had S&M porno or something, ends up killing the first guy. AND HE GETS ACQUITTED. If it weren't the early '80s in small-town Illinois he would never have gotten away with such a classic case of gay-bashing. I mean, it wasn't like you couldn't tell it was a gay bar. Oh the things you learn on the police beat. <blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Oeditpus Rex:
That is awful, JJ. Did you have to break the news or did she already know?<hr></blockquote>

DominEditrix · **Posted:** Tue Jun 29, 2004 12:23 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by lafollette:

So...did you **learn from Barry Rider** how to launder money from others, or did you learn how to **launder money from Barry Rider**?I'm guessing that one would've put you in greater esteem with the criminal than the other.Sorry; had to do it.<hr></blockquote>[chuckle] I learnt from Barry himself, whose catchphrase was "Not only does crime pay, it pays its attorneys exceptionally well."He also pointed out how money laundering and terrorism were intimately connected, railing at length against the stance the US government took that this country was somehow immune from both terrorism and international crime. "You ignored warnings about the Chinese Triads, you ignored warnings about the Russian Mafia, you ignore warnings about your vulnerability to terrorist attacks..."D.

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Tue Jun 29, 2004 3:33 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by JJ:
Oh she already knew. And of course I only called because my city editor insisted. Between sobs she could barely get anything out. <hr></blockquote>I asked because I've heard stories about the reporter being the one to tell the surviving spouse. One was related by Kurt Vonnegut in the foreword to "Slaughterhouse Five." He was writing for the Chicago News Bureau in the '40s when some guy got squashed by an elevator. The bureau chief asked Vonnegut if he had a quote from the guy's wife, and he said, "No, it just happened." The chief said, "Call her. Tell her you're Capt. Finn of the Chicago Police."

larepublica · **Posted:** Tue Jun 29, 2004 8:22 pm

Since I just quit my editing job to return to the world of freelance reporting I'd have to say that I prefer reporting. The horrendous copy I was being forced to edit on the most mundane (non-)stories was driving me crazy. Of course, I am in a part of the world where "going out on a story" means heading in to the rainforest or up a volcano or to the beach, and who can compare that favorably to sitting in a cubicle? Sorry, I have got to cut this short because I am off to a Caribbean island in Panama where the diving is great (and there is a story to write...).

Craig Lancaster · **Posted:** Tue Jun 29, 2004 9:43 pm

I did the prep-sports-and-small-city-government thing as a youngster, then moved to the desk. Editing seemed like a more natural fit for me. I was better at it, and I liked having influence over a lot of things rather than just a small slice of the daily report.Last year at age 33 -- half out of curiosity, half with the notion that it would make me a better editor -- I took on the Oakland Raiders beat. I enjoyed the work and *loved* the travel, but by the end of the season I was more than happy to come back inside. Which pretty much confirmed the reasons for my original decision to become an editor.[ June 29, 2004: Message edited by: Craig Lancaster ][ June 29, 2004: Message edited by: Craig Lancaster ]

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Wed Jun 30, 2004 6:10 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by slummingreporter:
Being a Buddhist might help.<hr></blockquote>Do well in this life and ye shall be reborn a copy editor in the next.

Ruby-Sue · **Posted:** Sun Jul 04, 2004 8:52 pm

I am a copy editor, but I'm allowed to write now and again which suits me fine.

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