In a November 7, 2007 column which appeared on the CCJ website, assistant professor and former newspaper copy editor Andy Bechtel argues that as the changing media landscape threatens the makeup of news staffs, it's time to think about what role copy editors should play in a digital news future.

In the column, Bechtel shares a compelling anecdote from his tenure as a copy editor at the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer. One path news organizations have taken to ensure sustainability as news "goes digital," Bechtel notes, is to focus intensively on covering local events, providing locally-relevant resources, and "owning" local issues.  In this environment, it makes sense for copy editors to move away from a central copy desk and operate in bureaus and in the community.

Bechtel writes:

If newspapers and Web sites are getting increasingly local in their coverage to survive, shouldn’t we also have copy editors become increasingly local? Instead of consolidating copy desks, why not have copy editors work more closely with reporters, not only in the main newsroom but also in newspaper bureaus?

That’s exactly what The News & Observer, the regional paper in Raleigh, N.C., did in the 1990s. As part of a push into nearby Durham and Chapel Hill, the N&O sent copy editors to the bureaus. I was one of them, working in the threadbare Chapel Hill office with an assignment editor and a half-dozen reporters. The advantages were significant:

• I was able to work side by side with reporters whose prior interaction with copy editors consisted of phone calls from the Raleigh newsroom. I handled all of the stories that came out of the bureau, writing the headlines and rewriting them as needed between editions.

• I became the face of copy editing to reporters and the assigning editor. They congratulated me on a job well done, and on occasion, questioned why I edited a story a certain way or wrote a headline the way I did. They called me with a late update or correction to the stories rather than trying to track down an anonymous editor in Raleigh.

Most importantly, they knew who was editing their work and writing the headlines for their stories. My physical presence in the bureau built relationships that created a collaborative environment. “I find that I am much more confident about the process when I know who will be copy editing and when I know that that person is familiar with my beat and my work,” said Jane Stancill, a reporter who covers higher education at the N&O.

• I became an expert in local copy, knowing the names and places that popped up in stories such as the country road that had a funny name.

This helped me detect and correct fact errors in stories that may have been overlooked by an editor unfamiliar with the area. I also understood the context of stories better and was able to make sense of incremental developments in long-running stories.

• I was a fill-in assignment editor in the evenings, letting the Raleigh office know of breaking stories. This came in handy, for example, when a school board member abruptly resigned in a resume-padding scandal. I was able to notify editors in Raleigh in time to get the story on the front page for the edition that went to Chapel Hill readers.

My time as the copy editor in the Chapel Hill office was among the most rewarding of my career, and reporters liked the arrangement as well.

“The closer collaboration is definitely the way to go,” Stancill said.

“In my view, it can only improve the work of both the reporter and the copy editor.”

The real beneficiaries, of course, were the readers. Effective collaboration, wherever it takes place, between writer and editor creates a better story and a more informed readership. As stated by the Committee of Concerned Journalists, “journalism’s first loyalty is to citizens.” Diminishing the role of the copy desk and divorcing editing from reporting are betrayals of that loyalty.

Now that I have moved from newsroom to classroom, my bureau experience informs my teaching. In my editing classes at UNC-Chapel Hill, local stories make up a substantial portion of the assignments. In one course, students edit stories written by their fellow students who are covering the town of Carrboro, N.C. Their work is published on a news Web site called The Carrboro Commons. These students will become the “hyperlocal” copy editors of the future — if news executives give them the chance.

Andy Bechtel teaches writing and editing at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He blogs at editdesk.blogspot.com.

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