“To write is human, to edit is divine”
That’s an excellent quote from Stephen King, illustrating how an editor can make good copy truly sing.
But a more mundane job that editors do is, according to the Washington Post, reduce the number of errors:
Between early 2005 and mid-2008, the number of full-time copy editors dropped from about 75 to 43 through buyouts or voluntary departures. It has declined further since then, but Post managers won’t provide precise figures beyond saying that six took a recent buyout offer. The need is so critical that most are being hired back on contract through at least the end of the year, and part-timers are taking up some of the slack.
Copy editors are the unsung heroes of newsrooms. Unknown to the public, and often underappreciated by their colleagues, they’re the last line of defense against a correction or, worse, a libel suit.
They’re skeptics who revel in the arcane. They know the difference between median and mean, and can speak knowledgeably about topics from Methuselah to the Milky Way. They write headlines, design some pages, check facts and make sure assertions are supported. They spend entire careers working horrible night-shift hours.
I don’t need any convincing of this, having been a reader, writer, and editor for most of my professional career. Nor do I need to be convinced of the importance of error-free writing. The larger question for me is where this kind of editing ought to come from. Can editing be crowdsourced — offloaded to the lazyweb — or does it require a designated editor? Do different types of writing benefit one way or the other? Can publishers work with a hybrid model, where the editor sits above the crowd?
I’m not convinced of the effectiveness crowd-power when it comes to producing quality text, and while we still value good writing (we do, don’t we?), I suspect we’ll always need these divine gods of letters.
