Opinion - Readers' Editor : Online & Off line

Noble but thankless, with no glory or praise

K. Narayanan

How the newsroom in U.S. newspapers is changing was the subject of a study published in these columns on August 18 and September 1, 2008. The survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (a project of the Pew Research Center) concluded that the newsrooms were shrinking in size, with cutbacks in staff strength. While the journalists are now younger and technically savvy, they are also under greater pressure, and there were also fewer people to catch mistakes.

According to the annual census done by the American Society of Newspaper Editors at the end of 2007, the number of full-time professional news staff in U.S. newspapers fell by 2,400 in the year, a drop of 4.4 per cent. Stephen Pritchard, Readers’ Editor of The Observer and current President of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen (ONO), wrote in August 2008 that “in the past few months, more than 4,000 jobs have been swept away across America.” That included eight ombudsmen. Among the casualties was Pam Platt of The Courier Journal of Louisville, Ky., the first North American newspaper to have an ombudsman. Ms. Platt was last year’s ONO President. Cost-cutting managements hold that the post of readers’ representative becomes redundant when readers have direct access to newspapers through blogs to point out errors.

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Like the newsrooms, the size of the paper is also shrinking and more posts on the editorial desk are under threat. There is an interesting discussion on whether there is need for copy editors at all! Over the years as technology has evolved, I have seen certain categories of staff vanishing, such as correctors and imposers in the press and proof readers among journalists. At the same time, jobs have expanded in other categories. Right now in the Indian media, opportunities for journalists are growing and there is an unmet demand. But as methods of production change, this scenario will also change and the ranks of subeditors may be the first to start thinning. As it is, this unglamorous calling, which gets neither glory nor praise, attracts relatively few new entrants.

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Writing in the Washington Post magazine, Gene Weingarten, a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, says copy editors played an important part when reporters were hired for their enterprise, their “cheek and muscle,” and not for their writing. Copy editors fine-tuned the reporters’ output. But now reporters are “fresh-faced, competent, highly educated” and don’t need copy editors. “It doesn’t make sense to weep for copy editors any more than it makes sense for us to lament the replacement of bank tellers with ATMs,” says Weingarten.

That is an extreme view. In print journalism, and in Indian conditions, it will not be possible to eliminate the layer of subeditors. As Chris Weinandt, President, American Copy Editors Society, cautions: “Cutting back on copy editing will hurt the credibility of newspapers.” A desk man all my life, I have argued for extra consideration for subeditors, because of the arduous nature of their work.

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On the subject of subediting, I came across an interesting exchange (thanks to my friend G. Krishnan). Giles Coren, a food columnist with Sunday Times, found an indefinite article removed from his copy in the published version and literally blew his top. I was amazed that a newspaper or blog could publish such filth, each sentence sprinkled with abuse and expletives. It was an e-mail by Coren to all Sunday Times subeditors that was leaked to others.

“I don’t like people tinkering with my copy for the sake of tinkering,” Coren wrote. An admirable and very valid principle, but that does not justify the venom he spewed in his mail. Laura Barton, writing in The Guardian, said: “… It was all expletives, cuss words, none of which I would reproduce here. Not that I am a prude, but to me it was revolting abuse.” And Coren demands that he be sent a proof of every review he writes, and an explanation from whoever made the change, of why it was done.

Two senior subeditors of Sunday Times, rising to the defence of their tribe, said subediting is “a noble profession and a thankless one.” Agreeing that tinkering with copy just for the sake of it was wrong, they asked Coren, “Do you have to be so rude?” A subeditor had to correct, check and make into “readable copy” what is often “badly structured, poorly spelt, appallingly punctuated, lazily researched” copy. Subs were no more infallible than writers and mutual respect was needed, they said.

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Another defence of the hapless subeditor came from David Marsh in The Guardian. Calling himself “a sub by trade”, Marsh said Coren’s outburst was the latest in a series attacking subeditors who felt under threat. A new Facebook group, “save our subs,” had voiced these fears. Subs “design, layout and publish pages, write headlines and captions, edit, cut and make sense of copy, check facts, grammar and house style and ensure stories are legally safe.”

That puts it neatly. It is hard, demanding work requiring varied skills and that needs recognition. At the same time, all these tasks also need to be done to perfection, and slips are not only obvious but arouse the wrath of writers and readers. Recently I came across a note that had been sent to one of the desks in The Hindu. “Poorly written and badly edited piece. We need better editing care, expertise, vigilance, revision and gatekeeping on the desk.” Such reviews and reactions have to be on a continuous basis, across all editions of the paper.

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Sometimes the most obvious mistake does not strike the eye. One such was the sentence, “What is the criteria for using ‘dead’ and ‘passing away’?” in my last column. Quite a few readers pointed out the error. When the sentence was read out to me after the first message came, I could immediately spot the mistake — the ear was alert, the eye was not, to this mix up of singular verb and plural noun. I thank all these readers, many of whom were communicating with me for the first time.

A note of solace came from Dr. G.V.S.N. Rao (Hyderabad). He wrote: “In an ever-evolving language like English, the convictions of purists are liable to take a beating. The 10th edition of Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary has this under usage for ‘criterion’: “The plural criteria has been used as a singular for nearly half a century … Many of our examples are taken from speech. But singular criteria is not uncommon in edited prose, and its use both in speech and writing seems to be increasing. Only time will tell whether it will reach the unquestioned acceptability of agenda.” Dr. Rao also cites the 1988 edition of Fowler’s Revised Modern English Usage which says, “lamentably, the plural form of criteria is now frequently but erroneously used as a singular.”

Thank you Dr. Rao for trying “to allay any feeling of your [my] having committed an error.” But I have to accept what Fowler says.

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

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