Denver Post to cut possibly two-thirds of copy editors

All three Broncos writers did. So did the Avalanche beat writer. And the GA/backup Avalanche writer. And the two CU football writers. And the CSU/backup NBA writer.

 

It was a Q-and-A and it was "Know Him From Adam."

 

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As of June 15, no one at the Post will have the title of copy editor. There were 23 people on the copy desk.

* 11 are resigning with severance and an enhanced health care package.
* One copy editor is moving to a reporting position.
* Another is going to the design desk.
* The copy desk chief will become a production manager.
* The remaining nine former copy editors will become “assistant editors” assigned to desks (business, features, Metro, sports) throughout the newsroom.

Editor Greg Moore spoke of the new editing process:

A reporter will write a story and a suggested Web headline. An assigning editor will edit the story, check the headline and publish it on the website.

When designers arrive in the afternoon, they’ll lay out pages based on the budgeted lengths of stories and come up with headline specs. The reporter will revise the story if necessary, perhaps adding additional reporting. An editor will read the story again, and one of them will place it on the page. Sometimes reporters will edit one anothers’ work.

Moore said the Post already publishes a number of stories throughout the day, but it will publish more under the new system.

Under the old system, Moore said, a story often would be read six or seven times. Now it will be two or three, perhaps more if it’s a big, high-stakes story.

For this to work, staff will have to be trained on a variety of skills, such as writing headlines for print and the Web and, of course, copy editing.

“We have not given up on copy editing,” Moore said. “We’re going to still edit stories before publishing online or in print. And we’ve retained a lot of copyediting DNA” in the newsroom; some of those people will do the training.