Bye, Bye, Copy Editors

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Earlier this summer, the venerable New York Times, long known as a bastion of meticulous editing, eliminated its copy desk. What this means is that there is no longer a department composed of copy editors, an elite group of specialists whose job it is to ensure that the writing is in acceptable style with correct grammar and word usage; check the accuracy of all assertions; verify any questionable sources; remove any potentially libelous or defamatory statements; assess the importance of a news story and assign it appropriate length and prominence in the page layout; and write a catchy, informative headline.

In times past the copy desk has been thought of as “the heart of the newspaper,” or as one copy editor put it, “its immune system.”  In the recent controversial elimination of the New York Times copy desk, on the other hand, its work was referred to as “low-value editing” and compared to “dogs urinating on a fire hydrant.”

In the future, all the editing tasks will be given to front-line editors, the same people who make the assignments to reporters and work with them on developing their stories. In other words, they will edit themselves.  And they’ll be told to hurry up—“streamlining” the process being one of the goals in getting rid of the copy desk.

This hardly strikes me as a prudent decision, especially in a time when the news media are being accused of perpetrating “fake news” on the public. To lose a complete step in the editing process can only increase the likelihood of inaccuracies in reporting.

On the most fundamental level, that of correct language usage, I have noticed an increasing sloppiness in the Times in recent weeks—solecisms that once would have been unthinkable in a paper of distinction. A few examples:

(In a nostalgic story about World War II): 

“Truman Calls on Nation to Forego Meat Tuesdays”

            What this says is that the nation is being asked to  

            “forego,” that is “go before” meat on Tuesdays.  The 

            correct word is “forgo,” meaning to "give up.”

“They were their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit.”              

            This is simply a careless substitution of “were” for 

            “wear.” 

“Have tread.” 

            The verb “tread” has a profusion of past participles: 

            “trod,” “trodden” and “treaded” are all acceptable.   

            “Tread,” however, is not. 

“Laying in the bed.” 

             I think every educated person knows this should be  
             "lying." 

I have little doubt that these errors are a result of hasty and perfunctory editing by people who are reporters are heart, without the concern for correct form found in a good copy editor. This is one more example of the deterioration of modern society, and I regret that the New York Times has succumbed to it.

Full disclosure: I began my brief career in the newspaper business as a copy editor on the old Houston Press, a Scripps-Howard daily that was swallowed by the Houston Chronicle in 1964.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou is among those who has little truck with copy editors. He feels they inhibit the natural outpouring of his genius.

            You have to shell out many dimes 
            To get a copy of The Times, 
            And when you do, you’d like to think 
            The grammar’s right in all that ink. 

            But now The Times regards its editors 
            As little more than vicious predators, 
            And to our fear of terrorism
            It adds the threat of errorism.