The small joys of work

Journalism can be an interesting job. Reporters get to talk to a diverse array of people every day; photographers get to frame the way things are remembered for years to come. Editors, on the other hand, well, we sit behind a computer screen for 40 hours a week.

There is, however, some joy to be had in that, and a big one for me is that I get to see everything. Well, I guess not everything, but a whole lot more than you. This is what I look at on a daily basis (click it):

There’s the national wire, the state wire, the sports wire, the entertainment wire… and this is only half of it. If I’m bored, I can read about whatever I want, a lot of which doesn’t make it into the paper simply because there’s not enough room. The same goes for pictures: If an Associated Press photographer saw it, I can see it; anything that’s available if there for me to peep at the click of a mouse. Some of the pics are breathtaking, some are bizarre… and sometimes there’s something that just makes me laugh. I share with you the pic of the day:

I wish someone had shown this to me sooner… the poor litle guy is still traumatized every time I suggest we take a stroll.

 

New job, new state

It’s been almost six months since I left a Michigan reporting job to become a copy editor in Kentucky. I thought I’d eventually miss writing and the relationships I built with community officials and residents. I’m surprised to find that I don’t. I don’t miss going to various city meetings (some lasted three hours!) after already putting in an eight-hour day. I don’t miss sitting at my desk, staring at the phone, willing it to ring and be the source I needed to talk to – those people always called when a deadline was minutes away. I do miss the people I got to know on my beat, but only to a certain extent. Everyone thought what their department or business was doing was the most important and turned any encounter – business or social – into a personal public relations session.As a copy editor, I now spend my days reading, correcting and turning blank pages into works of art – at least we like to think so! The deadline pressure still looms but it’s more of an exhilarated feeling rather than the exasperation reporters feel when a source calls at the last minute. I like being anonymous, yet still a key part of the newspaper.While I’ve transitioned easily into my new job, I’m still getting used to Kentucky – the Southern accents, the daily sightings of farm animals and, most especially, that the left lane is used for passing only.

Who’s this Copy guy, and why’s he need editing?

This Thanksgiving, I stayed home. My sisters-in-law came up, hung out at Casa de Shepherd, and it was great. I didn’t have to pack a carload of toys and diapers and safety devices. I didn’t have to get on the interstate. And I didn’t have to run into relatives I don’t often see, forcing me into obligatory smalltalk that generally leads to this statement on their end:”Oh right… a copy editor. Um… what exactly is that, again?”It usually takes me at least 3 minutes (an eternity in extended-family smalltalk time) to give a clear picture of my job — and the truth is, they probably enjoy listening to my spiel even less than I enjoy giving it. First I have to clear up the misconception that I get to make any real decisions. Then I have to explain that no, Spellcheck doesn’t quite eliminate the need for my job. Then I try to explain the elusive notion of “designing the page,” which is neither copying nor editing, and hence doesn’t really make sense to the listener (nor, admittedly, to me).So, just in case your niece or nephew ever chooses to become a copy editor, here are the Cliff’s notes.

1. A copy editor edits the copy. Seems self-explanatory, but it isn’t, because nobody outside the newspaper business (and very few in it) use the word “copy” this way. Whose bright idea this was, I don’t know, but it just means “words.” I’m a WORD editor. Yes, it seems ridiculous when I put it that way. But it’s different than “proofreading,” which implies just looking for grammatical mistakes — in fact, I’d argue that’s the less-important part. The crucial part is making sure the articles a.) make sense, b.) accurately portray the subjects they’re covering, and c.) don’t have gaping holes, leaving the reader with unanswered questions. That’s a lot harder than proofreading, and there will never be a relative of Spellcheck that can do it.
2. A copy editor designs the pages, at least at papers the size of this one. We multitask editing(primarily analytical) with designing (primarily creative). On the inside pages, it’s pretty simple: Put the stories in the holes where there are no ads, write a headline that makes sense (easier said than done), and try to find a way to fit a photo in there. On the front pages, though, we start with an essentially blank slate… there are a hundred ways to make it look bad, and astonishingly few practical ways to ensure it’ll look good. (My best days are when one of our worthy photographers hands me three or four wonderful pictures; I just toss ‘em on the page, and fit the “copy” around them, and voila!)
3. A copy editor is stressed out. Seriously. We need pieces from every department (news, photo, advertising) in order to do our job — when the reporter’s finished up and is walking down the street for a cup of coffee, we’re just getting started — and those pieces don’t always fit seamlessly together. So, just maybe, we’re the glue of the newsroom.

Whatever we are, we’re copy editors, and we’re too tired to explain it to you again.

The Daily Miracle

I absolutely love journalism – specifically, print media.

One of my favorite things to do here is go back to the pressroom when that day’s paper is being prepared for printing. I love it when the massive press starts up, creaking as huge rolls of virgin newsprint begin slowly turning, gaining speed and rhythm …

I love the smell of the ink and the sound of the press – when it’s going full on, you can feel it thrumming through your bones. It’s fantastic – I love watching the freshly minted newspapers travel out of the mighty press, carried up and out of the pressroom on a conveyor belt. From there, the newspapers, so far untouched by human hands, travel to the very back of the Daily News building to the area where all those inserts are … well, inserted and the papers are prepared for delivery.

It’s an amazing process that I haven’t gotten used to over the years.

There’s a tired old cliche in newsrooms – we call the newspaper the Daily Miracle. When you consider every aspect that has to come together, every day, to produce a newspaper, it’s no wonder it’s a cliche – it really is a miracle.

I love bringing friends and family members into the newspaper office and showing them through the various stages of a newspaper’s production. I think few people have any idea of what it takes to put out a paper every day. And why should they? So long as it shows up on their doorstep or driveway each day, people don’t need to know what goes into making it, any more than I really need to know exactly how electricity gets from … wherever it originates to the lamp in my living room.

And you’d better believe that when I flip that switch and the lamp doesn’t come on, I call the utility company to find out why, just like our customers call if that newspaper’s not at their doorstep.

If that happens, call our Circulation Department’s customer service number: 783-3200. I don’t know what the electric company’s number is; I’d have to Google it.

Can you Google Google?

I have no idea how newspapers got anything right before Google.

Most of my 23-year journalism career was pre-Google, and yet, I’m amazed that anything I wrote had any kind of accuracy before that marvelous search engine became available.

When the Internet first began integrating into newsrooms, it didn’t take long for journalists to realize caution was warranted. One of the first rules of journalism must be applied to the Internet, as well: Your information, and reputation, is only as good as your source. And obviously, there are a lot of questionable sources of information on the Internet.

I probably use Google at least a dozen times a day. I check spellings of cities and towns mentioned in obituaries, I double check time zones, I check various titles of people quoted in stories.

Sidebar: This is not an advertisement for Google. I am not in any way affiliated with Google. I have not been compensated in any way by Google. The Internet has lots and lots of search engines, all of which have their pluses. But Google has those cool holiday logos.

If I think back really hard, I believe I used to check my details the old-fashioned way: I asked people to spell things, looked things up on atlases and other reference material most newsrooms had, I called folks who would know for sure.

Most everything related to our legislature is accessible online now, but I remember having to call to request information and waiting two or three days for it to arrive in snail mail. In the snow. Up to my knees. Both ways.

Yes, I’m a dinosaur on copy desk. The other copy editors are young enough to be my children. Grammar and punctuation are still my first priorities in writing – which is not to say I always get it right. But I always strive for that.
And thanks to Google, I can get it right more often!

Tipping your server

In the print version of the paper, on Page 2, there’s a little box with a lot of phone numbers. One of them says: “On weekends, call 783-3241.”

That’s me.

Most of the calls I get are mundane: from funeral homes checking up on obituaries; or from photographers, letting me know they really are coming back, they promise; or from my wife, wondering why I keep leaving my cell phone on the nightstand and, by the way, could I start taking the trash out before it starts to smell bad? (And here I thought the smell was the indicator… I guess she favors the pre-emptive doctrine.)

Sometimes, though, I check my voice mail to find something else — something that’s been dramatized by Hollywood for years: The Anonymous Tip.

First off, let me assure you: Journalism is not that exciting. It has its moments, but for the most part (especially for me, who gets to judge the stories without all the hassle of writing them) its a routine affair. But the Anonymous Tip is different. It gives me hope, if only for a moment, that the day’s going to be much more interesting.

Most of the time, the tip turns out to be a bust. “Hey there, uh, I don’t know if y’all were aware, but I heard that Barack Obama was trained at one uh those, uh, madrassas, ya know? Well, I just thought, ya know, he’s runnin’ for president and all, but that seems awfully fishy to me, and I s’pose I was hopin’ y’all could get a reporter on that?”

Sometimes, though, it does turn into a story. Last weekend, I got a voice mail from a concerned citizen in Edmonson County, telling me about a petition to release $500,000 in state funding that was designated for a library, but which he said the county had other plans for. To be fair, I’m not sure he meant it to be an anonymous tip… maybe his cell phone reception wasn’t the best? Anyway, I passed to note on to our Projects Editor, who passed it on to a reporter, who got the story in Monday’s edition.

Without that tip, we probably would’ve missed it. Because, contrary to popular belief, the Daily News does not have a massive database of every issue in every city in our coverage area. (Nor do we have “codeword clearance,” I told the man concerned about a possible terrorist-infiltrated White House, “to get that kind of information.”)

I guess what I’m getting at is this: We try to catch the issues, but we’ve only got so many hands. So if you see something going on, don’t assume we know about it. In fact, give us a call.

But do me a favor: Leave your name and number at the sound of the beep.