I have, stored away safely in my head, a list of people who should be dragged into the street and shot.
Don’t worry — I am not declaring war on women, Jews, lesbians, Russians, Republicans, rightwingers or communists. It’s simply a list of those around me who were seemingly born missing a significant quantity of brain matter, and who therefore constantly act in utter stupidity without any consideration towards the rest of humanity.
On this list, among many others, are:
This week, I read about another candidate for this list. British newspaper boss David Montgomery‘s Mecom company is on a shopping spree, buying up chunks of the European newspaper industry.
It’s all very interesting, obviously. But what caught my attention was a speech by Montgomery in which he addressed the future of print journalism.
He said: “Never before has a journalist been able to reach out to their audience without intervention. Reporters out in the field can call up a page on their laptop and put copy straight on to the page without intervention.” He added: “It means journalists can be freed from humdrum roles and the sub-editing culture can break down.”
Using the example of TV journalists, who are not sub-edited for live reports, he said: “I see a situation where experienced journalists that can be trusted have no barrier to communication with their audience. Sub-editing is a twilight world, checking things you don’t really need to check … Senior people will always monitor the content, a core group will create the product.”
I venture that Montgomery has never sat next to a good sub-editor who was knocking a story into shape. In my time at the Mail & Guardian, I have had the opportunity to sub-edit copy by some of this country’s best and most experienced journalists, and I do believe that the Vodacom Journalist of the Year Award should have a subtitle attached to it: “Sub-edited by …”
Former M&G editor Howard Barrell once said the sub-editors were the most important people in the newsroom.
Clearly the credit for the actual writing work, sniffing out the leads and doing the investigation goes to the journalist; however, there are very, very few journalists who write perfect copy. There is always something to fix: style, grammar, spelling … and only by “checking things you don’t really need to check” does a crafty sub-editor spot sometimes obscure errors that might otherwise appear in print (or online).
Montgomery’s argument refers to blogging — publishing without intervention. The difference is that the “intervention” of sub-editing at a newspaper maintains quality and saves the newspaper from embarrassing apologies (or costly court cases). Also, it’s nigh impossible to spot all of one’s own writing errors; a fresh eye always pays (and a trained one even more so).
“Senior people will always monitor the content,” he says. Of course they will, but I have known many senior editors whose grasp of grammar left much to the imagination. Perhaps Montgomery is one of those people who simply don’t see the difference between “its” and “it’s”.
As for online journalism (the future of print journalism?), standards are, sadly, much lower than those in print newsrooms. More than ever, good sub-editors (a dying species, it seems, but that may be a blog for another day) are needed in under-resourced, fast-moving online newsrooms to dig for gold among reams of wire copy and news reports written by interns fresh out of journalism schools.
I fear Montgomery, sans his sub-editors, faces a rather bleak future, chock-full of corrections boxes and letters from literate readers. In the meantime, he’s the newest addition to my list.
Oh, and TV journalists may not be subbed, but sometimes the mangled English in e.tv and SABC news reports makes Robert Kirby spin in his grave, I’m sure.
I think you mistake when saying the future of journalism is online. There is no way I will let my new puppy do number one on my pc screen…..
And as for the shooting part…..ditto. Could add traffic cops targeting soft prey.
As for sub-editors, I do agree that in the heat of the moment things get missed, and if not checked, court cases will follow. A thing as simple as quotation marks can fill blogs with endless rhetoric, last count 24 posts to be exact.
Yes keep the well trained sub-editors….shoot the biographers.
Agree with you on the subs (although I hate it when editing changes the sense of a submission…then I want to shoot the sub responsible).
There is a special corner of Hell reserved for people who don’t indicate at traffic circles.
Nope Sarah, not even the devil wants them….but I am sure they can find a place in our government, seeing as no-one seems to know where they are headed either.
I have to agree with Riaan. I’m one of those fresh out of school people who is privileged to work under him and learn…and o boy am I learning.
Sometimes I do the silliest things and only Riaan and Matthew pick it up.
We are not taught these things on campus and without there help we would never learn about it.
I totally agree that good sub-editors add 20-30% to the value of a good story, carrying one newspaper’s stories above and beyond the competitors’. Simon and Jade, the best subbies I know, you guys rock my world!
Riaan and I had a good discussion over this in Grahamstown at the Digital Citizen Indaba. And then I had a repeat conversation with the IOL team.
And yes, awards should acknowledge the sub!
Simone aka Attila the Sub
Bizcommunity.com Senior Sub-editor
Here’s to the subs, may they live to a ripe old age!
BTW, don’t forget us poor news editors who slave away with the rawest of the product every day…
In my view, the raison d’être for subs in South Africa: “Juniorification” of the newsroom.
Riaan cannot possibly be talking about HIS sub-editing skills surely? The man has killed every blog I ever submitted, the anti-freedom of speech fascist!
Not.
On a serious note, I agree. The best advise I ever got when I started fancying myself as some kind of scribe was from a friend, Sandile Ngidi. I was pouting over some minor change my publisher, Tim Richman had made in my book and Sandile replied to me with a brutal response: “You’re an author and you’ve done the writing, now step back and let the editors edit.”
If my blogs appeared here in the same form as I submit them, I might come across as a dyslexic nitwit a few times. Good editing has the potential of elevating great writing to the sublime.
I’ll contribute generously to the Bullets For Montgomery Fund.
Jan, please elaborate on how you slave away?
Hello Riaan, jsut wantd to agree holehartedly. Were it not have been for the Mail&Guardians subeditors, a certain recently retired columnist would of been exposed to his adoring pubic as having no grasp of either spelling nor grammar.
Yours in picking nits
Tom
Hi Simone,
I don’t know if you are familiar with the set-up in the newsroom, but all copy that comes in is being checked and subbed by the news editors first, before being pushed through to the subs’ desk.
We have made great strides in coaching people and seeing a real improvement in their writing, but the reality is that there are fewer and fewer senior reporters in our newsrooms.
Hence, we have to pass on complex stories that needs careful wording to people who do not always have the necessary experience to write them.
Even with a proper brief and debrief, these stories often need a lot of surgery, and that’s were we come in.
Nooooooo Tom, come baaaaaaaack!
It’s heartening to see the support here for sub-editors — at least I know a media boss like Montgomery won’t be easily tolerated in South Africa’s newsrooms!
Thanks, Jan, I don’t come from a traditional news background. From talking with industry colleagues (Riaan, IOL), it seems to me that in some online news rooms, we subs are also acting as news editors and proofreaders – lack of resources…
I’m both a writer and a subeditor/editor. When I’ve written a story and turned it in, I leave it to the subs to perfect. They often pick up howlers that I’ve missed, even when I’ve carefully re-read the story 20 times.
A poor sub, however, can drive a writer insane. I’ve made screaming errors that no sub has picked up and that, of course, have leapt out at me as soon as I’ve seen the story in print.
As a subeditor, my worst nightmare is a writer who nitpicks over every change. They demand to see the subbed version of their story, then they go to war over the placement (or, more often, deletion) of every comma.
A good writer knows when to back off; a good sub knows to check everything, including things they ‘don’t really need to check’.
Yep Simone,
I have just recently moved from the “print newsdesk” to online. Actually I find online easier because at the momement most of our postings are on our blog (Dispatch Now 24/7)which consists of me taking dictates from our reporters out in the field. So I get to write most of the text and can ask all the questions.
It’s simple yet effective, as any wire service person will agree.
The only book – and I’ve had 9 published and am working on my 10th and 11th (yes, I know I’m nuts, but I love the research) – the only book I had serious problems with was the one where the sub-editor said to me, ‘my word, but you’re a brilliant writer.’ As he said those words I broke out into a cold sweat. I was right, he was wrong.
The best sub-editors I’ve ever had were first, the Swedish editor of one of my books who was clever beyond anyone I’ve ever dealt with, who understood more about my book than I did and encouraged me to go back and learn more about what I’d written – this will only make sense to other writers.
The others have been fact checkers at papers like the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post as they nitpick their way through every fact, every claim, every assertion.
I’ve edited books too and truly, you don’t want me editing your book, because I send back emails that say, ‘what precisely did you mean when you said…’ or ‘can you source that assertion…’ Nightmare stuff but without it we all just blather.
I love blogging because I love the feedback from readers, but it terrifies me too because so much of what I write goes unguided, like a blind person without his or her white stick into the world.
All writers should be nervous about their work – it is that anxiety that makes us try harder. And there is not a writer in this world whose work has not always been improved by an intelligent, sharp, critical editor.
The death of subs, you say? Bah piffle. People always salivate whenever the coming subediting holocaust is shouted from the rooftops anew. Writers with too much ego drum their fingers and… well, that’s about it, really. Writers with too much ego. Happily for we subs, these writers take it extremely poorly when the person who has had their name spelt three different ways refuses to take ‘I was under pressure’ as an excuse. Then they’re crawling back to the sub’s desk. If any subs have problems with dickhead writers, do what I did – i got one writer and marked up their copy for them, showing every mistake, inconsistency, mis-spelt website and non-existent phone number. Then I showed her what needed to be cut for space, and how there really is a house style, and someone really does need to know it. She was very quiet and narky, but never questioned a change again. Remember – a sub never makes a mistake. Our mistakes are other’s mistakes we didn’t find. And we deal with people who think they’re perfect and assume the perfect story that went to print is the same one they wrote. Nuh-uh. And they find out very fast when subs aren’t there.