Nick Jungman, Knight Visiting Editor in the Columbia Missourian newsroom and a visiting assistant professor in the Missouri School of Journalism, recently wrote of a new direction for the Missourian’s copy desk. In a nutshell, most of the newsroom’s copy desk now has no involvement with the print product, focusing instead on the website.
Jungman writes:
Instead, they’d become “interactive copy editors.” They would focus on getting stories to our website quickly and accurately, on finding ways to increase reader engagement with our work online, and on making sure the website is always putting its best possible foot forward. The work of a copy editor would be just beginning when an article published.
A small team of editors and designers, working separately, would manage all the details of the print edition, from story selection to final proofing, piggybacking as much as possible on the work of the interactive copy desk.
Among the interactive copy editors’ responsibilities:
Interactive copy editors are in charge of our social networks. They regularly use Twitter and Facebook. But we can be more creative and proactive in soliciting reader input for potential stories, rather than just the ones we’ve already posted.
Interactive copy editors also monitor the comment boards at the end of every article. They take down comments that violate our policies, and they jump in when the conversation demands a Missourian response. We think copy editors could do more in mediating conflicts among commenters and soliciting comments on stories that ought to be sparking them but aren’t.
I attended the Missouri School of Journalism, and also worked on the Missourian’s copy desk eight years ago, so I am especially interested in this project. I’d be interested in seeing how newsrooms would attempt this model.
Meanwhile, another recent story highlights a possibility for the future of copy desks:
The Winston-Salem Journal has eliminated 17 full-time positions and one part-time copy editor position as part of its transition to a consolidated editing center, in which the paper’s design, copy editing and headline writing are being done in Tampa, Fla., and Richmond, Va.
One of the 17 employees is moving to the Richmond editing center, and one has moved to a position in another department at the Journal. The other copy editors and designers, who left the Journal last week, received a severance package. A graphic artist and an assigning editor also were laid off in a separate cost-cutting move.
Of course, this was not a surprise. In April, Media General Inc., who owns the Journal, announced that it would transition to “editing centers” by the end of 2010.
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My fear with editing centers would be that removing the copy editors from the area that the paper is being published would diminish the attention to detail each editor would give to stories. While it may not be apparent early, a copy editor will give more detail to the paper of their city that they read as opposed to a paper miles away which they will rarely (if ever) see the printed copy.
It’s similar with IT outsourcing; contractors don’t really care about the final product and do only what’s needed to be paid even if it isn’t good for the business. For example, I know first hand that a set of contractors wrote code that went over schedule and budget. The code was given to an internal employee who removed the useless ‘circles’ of code and increased its efficiency. In the end, 89 percent of the code was removed and deemed useless because they weren’t concerned with the outcome of the project. That much wasted code and processing time is valuable in a large scale operation. It raises hardware costs and increases the risk for failure.
I just hope “editing centers” don’t become a trend in journalism, especially large metro dailies. Copy editors are a vital role in producing a quality product that people want to pay for, whether online or in print. I would imagine it’s important that they can easily interact with writers to know their intent or check the spelling of names. Possibly keep in-house copy editing during regular business hours and move after hours editing to a “editing center?”
Either way, it’ll be interesting to see the long term impacts of this move. If successful, a lot of jobs could be in jeopardy. I also hope someone follows up and sees whether they “perform as expected in 2011, I anticipate being able to add news resources to improve our coverage.” I’m not holding my breath.