Week 10

For this week's blog entry we were told to read "The Quality-Control Quandry" by Carl Sessions Strepp of the American Journal Review and discuss what we thought of the article. Basically Strepp's article went over what we all already know: Editing jobs are being cut significantly in newspapers everywhere. I feel like these cuts are just going along with the times. Jobs are being cut everywhere. We all know the stats on the newspaper industry, it only makes sense that more and more editors are being let go. By understanding and accepting this, I think now the most important thing for newspapers is to make-do as much as possible with the editors that remain; to do as thorough and as accurate job as much as possible.
I think that absolutely all copy should be edited by at least one person other than the reporter who wrote it before it is published in any way -- even if it's only going online. Just because immediacy and speed are crucial when it comes to internet news, I think that it is even more important to make sure that speedy news is reported without any silly typos. And even though there are not as many editors sitting around to proof stories for errors, a fewer number of editors is better than no editors at all.
The AJR article listed a few copy editing practices that are becoming more and more common during this time of transition which I found to be pretty spot-on. The most important one in my opinion is the reinforcement of the oftentimes neglected principle that writers should be better self-editors. I would take that a step further and say that writers should never be the only ones editing their story. I also think that the practices of "buddy editing," "previewing" and "back editing" can do wonders for places where the number of editors is plummeting.
I think the main idea that this article is trying to get across is to not get too worked up with the news of editor cut-backs, but to just step up to the plate and do better work in the first place,and to make-do with the editors that remain.