The Extermination of Copy Editors

By Matt DiVenere

Copy editors, the silent defenders of the written word, are under attack from multiple fronts and there is nothing they can do to defend themselves.

Was that too dramatic of an opening? Not even close.

When you look at the current state of journalism, copy editors should be the bell of the ball.  Instead, industry giants are rendering copy editors useless—pawns in an unfair game with the deck stacked incredibly against them.

We have been given one of two reasons why this is all unfolding: an industry shift toward more video content and a “lack of readership.” You’ve seen the internal memos being leaked that explain the company’s commitment to “staying with the times” and “responding to our viewers.”

However, the decision to move away from journalism happened a long time ago. It happened very subtly at first. But now that click-bait and video content runs the village, those who seek the written word have become labeled the village idiots.

Although this trend has gone on for much longer than it seems, it’s only come to fruition thanks to the slew of layoffs and restructuring in some of the largest media companies in the world. But there is one group of brave men and women who are standing up for themselves in the only way they know best: through the written word.

If you’re not following what is happening at The New York Times, you should. Not for the reason why you think, however. Yes, it is devastating what is happening to those copy editors. Staff cuts, workload increases, and an overall lack of respect being shown to them make an already thankless job nearly impossible to do.

“ What happens when our entire society needs information, but has no idea where to go?”

I cannot imagine a world where we will question the reporters at the newspaper of record, because that would terrify me. And it should terrify you, too. Where do you turn once your most trusted source becomes null and void? What happens when you have no one to turn to for the truth? For objectivity? What happens when our entire society needs information, but has no idea where to go?

Are you going to believe everything you find on the Internet? Will you believe nothing at all and make up your own narrative as to what is really going on?

Both scenarios are dangerous. Unfortunately, both scenarios are happening right now. We have our political parties labeling news organizations as “fake news” and are more concerned about which way they are politically leaning than what is actually being told. This has sent such a shockwave through the American people to the point where it is now part of the everyday conversation. Instead of trusting a news source and the job it has done vetting the story, the first response is always politically based.

It is the responsibility of a news organization to deliver the facts of the story and to allow its readers the opportunity to start a dialogue and form their own opinions on the matters at hand. It is one of the pillars of journalism in this country. And the facts need to be 100 percent correct, every single time. No exceptions.

By eliminating copy editors and by pinning reporters into a click-bait corner, we are stripping them of their power. We cannot continue down this path. We need to empower them. We need to support them.

So bravo to the brave copy editors at The New York Times. Your stand doesn’t fall on deaf ears. It should be echoed to the masses. Keep fighting.

More Writer’s Bone Essays

Refilling the Treasure Chest: How I Moved On After I Was Robbed of My Writing

By Lindsey Wojcik

Who steals a jump drive?

Better yet, what motivates someone to steal an item that's relatively cheap to purchase at any office supply store?

I often obsess over what plausible answers to these questions would be because four years ago my jump drive and laptop—both of which contained my entire college portfolio, among other valuable items. My prized writer possessions were stolen from me by faceless, unknown person or persons who burglarized my New York City apartment—an apartment in a new neighborhood that I had just moved into three weeks prior. I was saved from the frightening experience of a home invasion, however, losing everything I had written—digitally, at least, published and unpublished—was, in some ways, more frightening.

I was a recent college graduate chasing an editorial career in the big city, miles away from home, and my entire body of work was taken from me. I felt helpless and much like Carrie Bradshaw when her computer crashed (as someone who had recently moved to New York City, I was also a “Sex and the City” addict). “What if everything I’ve ever written is gone?” Carrie ponders. “When’s the last time you backed up?” Miranda asks. I thought I was the anti-Carrie by backing up my work by using a jump drive. As it turns out, it didn’t matter.

Again, I have to ask: Who steals a jump drive?!

I too wondered if all was lost, so after experiencing the five stages of grief, I began a mental checklist of the important work that my stolen technology contained. Every single thing I ever wrote for my university's student newspaper—where I worked for three years, eventually becoming editor in chief—came to mind. Was that all erased?

Thankfully, the journalism department at my alma mater required a portfolio to graduate. That lovely black portfolio with hard copies of only some of my standout pieces was safely nestled near the crime scene. All was not lost. Although it felt like it because, with the exception of those few printed pages, PDFs of every story that I’d written and published in college were on the hijacked jump drive.

Being a pack rat was my saving grace. I had kept a hard copy of each volume and number of my college’s newspaper stashed away at my parent’s home back in Michigan. There are two Sterilite totes filled with those newspapers, as well as copies of the weekly alternative newspaper I interned at, stacked in my childhood closet. And even that got me thinking: Are those totes are waterproof? I sure hope so. If I lose those because of water damage or, God forbid, a fire, I will lose it.

However, all of the unpublished Word documents saved on the stolen computer that held my college-aged thoughts and ideas vanished, which is soul-crushing in many ways. I’ll never know the end of those old, unfinished sentences scattered over many saved pages with ambiguous names. And any future memoir recounting my college years will require long, deep thought from my wine-addled brain.

Though I’ve accepted the loss of those material items (okay, maybe I am still harboring a bit of a grudge) and have since replaced my computer, the experience made me re-think how I archive my written work. My personal archive is still a work in progress, but since the break in I’ve kept a paper trail of everything. I’ve also tried to leave a digital footprint of my work (published and unpublished) somewhere on the Internet.

My professionally published work is mostly digital, so I have a compiled list with links to those stories stowed on my email account. Perhaps, as an added safety measure, I should consider printing out each story with my byline. I also have hard copies of each magazine I've written professionally for in some of those totes at my parent's home. I am grateful they allow me to store so much of my stuff there. My current New York City apartment wouldn't allow such storage (and as Daniel Ford points out, the New York Public Library might not be enough).

My unpublished pieces now reside in a folder on my Google Drive. You can steal a woman's laptop and jump drive with precious content once, but steal again and all is not lost for the woman—unless Google is down. Does that mean that Google owns my life’s work? Maybe I should check into that.

I have half-filled notebooks in every room of my apartment scribed with ideas, half-written pieces, and some nonsense. It helps to look back on those lost thoughts, and often, it tailspins into a cohesive piece that I could eventually publish. After all, that’s how this post began.

A writer’s archive of work—published or unpublished—is a treasure allowing the writer to display the sparkling gems that earned great praise or even strike gold with the rediscovery of an old thought. It is sacred, and it should be treated as such.

Go forth a build your own treasure chest. Just make sure to put a LoJack on it.

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