My continual pet peeve: babbling copy editors

It is actually possible to edit copy without sharing every error or awkward phrasing you discover with the entire desk.

That is all.

I feel better, now.

 

[blue]We can, but it's not as fun if you don't share it with the rest of the desk.[/blue]

 

In my experience, copy editors delight in loudly trashing reporters for offenses real and imagined but skitter under the rug or shrug their shoulders and blame deadline/staffing when you try to find out who wrote a bad head or edited a mistake into the copy.

As if reporters don't have deadlines or multiple responsibilities.

I was guilty of this at times myself, I confess.

 

It was all just background noise before amid the hum of the newsroom, and you didn't notice.

But now since there are only a handful of people remaining in newsrooms, the "babbling" breaks the silence like clashing cymbals.

 

Let them comment. It's their way to let off steam in the workplace. We just need thicker skins.

 

I'd rather listen to 10 babbling copy editors than listen to any two people brag/commiserate back and forth about their fantasy teams ...

 

I confess. I babbled when I read some copy that said Sean Elliott underwent a liver transplant. ;D

But there's no more babbling in our newsrooms (well, mostly) about errors caught.

All you hear now is "fucking Tribune module . . . fucking Tribune module . . . fucking Tribune module."

The other day we ran a briefs module in which five of the six headings had information duplicated from separates/roundups elsewhere in our section. We spend more time conducting e-mail "votes" between the papers as to what will be the briefs lead, and more time constructing workarounds for the really embarrassing situations (such as when your section front story also is in the briefs module) than we would ever spend if we just let our own goddamn copy editors build their own briefs based on our section's unique needs for the day.

An embarrassment that gets worse every day.

 

The folks commented about are far away. It's just us worker bees on the desk. Yet, one of the copy editors, especially, has to cackle like a hen laying an egg every time something that needs to be fixed is discovered.

The copy says something like, "For updates on this story, read the writer's bolg at www.blahblahblah.com".

"Bolg?"

"What's a bolg?"

"Gee, do you think they meant 'blog'?"


Well, duh. Just fix it. I don't need to hear it.

There's six of us here, now. In a month we're moving to a universal desk. There'll be a dozen to 20 then, depending on the time of day and desk configuration.

If there are four or five similar babblers in the bunch, I might get a bit skitsy.

 

amen. really, nobody -- not even another fantasy owner who's a lifelong friend and even helped you adopt a pet -- gives two craps that placido polanco went 2 for 5 last night. and if you have placido polanco, i'm sorry. and like it or not -- it can be annoying -- the copy editor's just doing his/her job.

 

I lost it on a fellow desker who similarly pointed out every last little mistake. The 10th time or so he did it on a given night, I finally shouted, "So just fix it and shut the hell up about it!"

 

I used to do this. Haven't in a while. Just edit it and move on. Rarely, every now and then, I'll note something out of the ordinary. But not much.

 

I understand fixing errors is part of the job description, and I do it without issue most nights. But when one person continually makes bad factual errors, venting will happen.