Whither goes the copy editor?

Lawrence Downes writes a heartfelt piece in the New York Times this week titled “In a Changing World of News, an Elegy for Copy Editors.”

Downes laments the plight of the traditional newsroom copy editor, whose job it is to “trim words, fix grammar, punctuation and style, write headlines and captions.” He says that copy editors are a dying breed because their function—“to slow down, think things through” and “make sure that the day’s work of a newspaper staff becomes an object of lasting beauty and excellence once it hits the presses”—is incompatible with the speed with which news is published online.

All things considered, having reached a point in history where the news production process that Downes lays out—“through a reporter’s mind, a photographer’s eye, a notebook and camera lens, into computer files, then through multiple layers of editing,” not to mention the printing phase—has been flattened to a solitary person typing content directly into their publishing software and clicking Submit, with all of the empowerment that that entails, the loss of the checks built in to the production process to ensure quality of content seems a fair trade-off.

But the copy editor’s role remains important, even if it has transformed on the Internet. Some types of online content require copyediting more than others. Blogging is a grey area. In its purest form—individuals writing down their thoughts in a highly personal style—the rest of the world serves as copy editor, adding feedback on the blogger’s insight, accuracy, and even grammar in the comments section of each posting.

But blogging has grown to encompass all types of content, including news. And not all news bloggers aspire to that personal style of writing. Speed is still of the essence, but so are clarity and professionalism. Copy editors must still make sure the words makes sense, but they have to be more nimble and flexible in their schedule than before.

In large online news operations, such as CNET, while not yet nearly the size of the largest print newsroom, the copy editor's role is clearly defined. As Downes himself notes, “webby doesn't necessarily mean sloppy.” Editing still has its place.

Even though the Internet is gradually pushing traditional newspapers out of business, it is not an “online” version of the print world. It’s a different beast and can’t neatly be judged by the same standards. Copyediting is still here; it just looks different.