The ex-copy editor

once earnest and eager

Was wealthy in wisdom

while he was working.

Now humble and hang-dog

he haunts his home;

Kettle of ketchup soup

cooks in the kitchen.

Moaning in monotones

mourning the media,

He picks up his paper

so pitifully paltry.

Egregious errors

in awful abundance!

He gives way to grief

with the grimmest of groans:

‘‘Of solace no sign

as I sit on the sofa

Searching The Sun

for a sensible story!

From op/ed to obits

the outmoded news organ

Shrunken and shabby

is shallow and saddening.

‘‘The luckless who labor there,

left after layoffs,

The ragged remainder

who work on the rim,

Do they still dream

of old days on the desk,

When countless curmudgeons

freed copy from chaos?

‘‘In days now departed,

to our duty devoted,

We’d crouch in our cubicles

curing confusion:

Misplacement of modifiers,

metaphors mangled,

Ledes that were losers,

laughably lightweight.

‘‘Cutting clichés

from ill-crafted constructions

Recasting risible

riots of rhetoric.

With stylebook as scripture

we sought to save sentences,

Facile in fixing

all factual failures.

‘‘I rant in my rage

at a rascal reporter!

Her writing is wretched –

unreadable ruin!

She spelled a name ‘Sheila’

and ‘Shiela’ and ‘Sheela.’

Just one version valid;

the variants vexing.

‘‘Harried and haggard

I holler out: ‘Hellfire!

Goddammit! Goddammit!

Goddammit! Goddammit!’

And caustically cursing

and keyboard aclatter

And lonely in labor

I log on to Lexis.

‘‘Dig through a dizzying

deluge of data,

Sifting through servers

while seeking the spelling.

Now shines the solution:

The source is named Sharon.

With carping complaint

I complete the correction.

‘‘Now bellowing bearlike,

eyes bloodshot and bulging,

The slot starts to shout

and to swear like a sailor!

Our Doomsday draws near:

The desk is on deadline;

Forget the finesse –

finish up in a fury.

‘‘So day after day

we thus did our duty,

Unseen and unheard

we were earnest in effort;

Seeking to save

The Sun from itself,

Concerned in our craft

with correction-free content.

‘‘The goal was unglamorous,

the gains were not great,

The hours were awful,

amenities absent.

Despite all the drudging

we daily discovered

A portion of pride

for our part in the paper.

‘‘Then shadows descended:

a shrunk circulation,

A ruinous, rapid

reduction of revenue!

The titan, Tribune Co.,

had trashed all its treasure.

Concerned over cost

it began cutting corners.  

‘‘Editors exited,

urged by the offer

Of buyouts and bargains.

The bureaus were booted.

Reporters who once won

renown with their writing

Now feared for the future

and fled the fiasco.

‘‘Then too late we learned

a lamentable lesson:

Astuteness in editing,

aptness in English,

Loses its luster

when listed in ledgers.

It’s ‘content’ that counts;

other cares are cashiered.

‘‘Midlevel managers

– morons and mavens –

Were first to find out

that their fates had been fixed.

The copy desk cowered,

like cowards we quivered,

Anxious, awaiting

the arc of the ax.

‘‘The hacking was horrid,

ham-handedly handled,

Rent-a-cops rudely  

repelled rousted workers,

Guarding the gates

’gainst the once-Guild-protected

As streetward we slunk

seeking new situations.

‘‘And so I, in exile,

examine the outcome:

A formerly fine paper

now fit for fish wrap.

And no one has need

of an ex-newsroom nebbish.

I sip at my soup

at just 6 cents a serving.’’

The unemployed editor

ends thus his elegy,

Sits down and sighs

then seeks out the sudoku,

Picks up a pencil

and ponders the pattern.

Where does the 1 go?

he wearily wonders.

***

The pica pole now

just a pointless old plaything!

The stylebook sits

in a stack on a shelf!

The proofer’s pen

now never put to the paper!

Now comes the nightfall

for nerds of the newsroom.