Every newspaper needs its unsung heroes
Working as a sports copy editor at a major metropolitan newspaper is sort of like being an offensive lineman in football: You complete tireless, thankless tasks in anonymity under difficult circumstances and only get noticed when you make a mistake.
OK, that’s an exaggeration. There are certainly people in the newspaper business, from reporters to editors in chief, who appreciate and value the work that copy editors in all departments do on a nightly basis in editing stories for clarity, fairness and content. They know that copy editors write smart, clever headlines that draw readers into stories, and correct factual and typographical errors in copy that, left unchecked, damage a publication’s credibility. They’re aware that the copy desk provides an appealing polish to the final product — in print or online.
But clearly not all newspaper decision-makers agree that copy editors are crucial cogs in the daily journalism machine. Why, after all, are the copy editing ranks being gutted at major metropolitan papers across the U.S.? Not only are copy editors being sacrificed, at many papers they’re also being laid off disproportionately to the number of reporters being let go.
Everyone knows that the newspaper business is in rough shape. Many papers are fighting for their survival as advertising revenue keeps falling and readers head online to get their news, thus causing circulation of the print editions to drop. Someone, though, will have to explain to me how getting rid of an alarming number of the papers’ quality-control experts — copy editors — is a smart idea. How is creating a product, online and in print, that’s sloppier and less refined a good business strategy?
I worked as a sports copy editor for The Baltimore Sun from September 2007 to May 2009, when about 60 newsroom employees, including me, were let go in a major cost-cutting move by The Sun’s owner, Tribune Co. I had previously worked as a sports copy editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press for more than four years.
Several members of an already bare-bones copy editing staff were let go in the spring layoffs. Public statements from higher-ups at The Sun shortly after the layoffs focused on how the reporting ranks at the paper remained almost untouched. No one would argue that keeping reporters on staff is a bad thing. But anyone who has worked in a big-city newsroom knows that editing is an essential part of quality journalism, not a luxury. Who’s left in the newsrooms to do the editing?
Who’s putting out the paper?
I am not sure what editing structure The Sun is using these days for its print and online editions. The sports department lost all three of its copy editors in the layoffs (two, including me, were let go, and the third was transferred to a different role at the paper) as well as an assistant sports editor who had often filled in on the desk. I imagine that other managers in the department (the head of sports, executive sports editor and high schools sports
Photo by Elizabeth Malby
1968 printing of The Sun’s stylebook.
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