As an example, he points to an incident at the Raleigh News & Observer, wherein an editor added details that resulted in the story describing someone watching a football game that never happened.
No doubt that editor felt horrible about the mistake. And on the other side of things, editors are sometimes unfairly accused of mangling copy. Last month, Kris DeRego, a student writer for the student newspaper at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, was accused of being a serial fabricator. How did he explain the litany of unverifiriable sources and other information in his work? By blaming the copy editors.
In a written statement to a local paper, he explained that his work was “adulterated during the copy (editing) process — a problem encountered by other staff members working at Ka Leo.”
John McIntyre, the former head of the copy desk at the Baltimore Sun, offered a nice summary of the error insertion issue on his blog:
It would be idle to pretend that copy editors do not make mistakes, even inserting errors into texts — I bear the scars of many such lapses myself. But I have also seen over the years how tempting it is for some reporters to condemn the copy desk before determining the facts. The human reflex to shift blame elsewhere, especially on a target group, is quite strong. Any number of times I have reported to work to take up the day’s fresh complaints, discovering frequently on examination that the reporter actually made the error, or the originating editor made the error, or even, on some occasions, that there was actually no error.
Which brings me back to the wafer. We know that an editor inserted the inaccurate information. But there’s so much we don’t know: who they are, why they did it, and whether they deliberately chose not to inform the reporters prior to publication. The apology has been made, but we’re still waiting for an explanation. The incident also brings to mind a final bit of advice offered by Robinson.
“The other rule that both editors and reporters are expected to follow is that old saw: ‘When in doubt leave it out’,” he wrote.
Correction of the Week
“‘Men of Israel’: In the Big Picture column in Monday’s Calendar, an item about the film ‘Men of Israel’ described Michael Lucas of New York-based Lucas Entertainment as a former porn actor whose company produces gay porn. A spokesman for Lucas says he still has an active career as a performer in the adult industry.” – Los Angeles Times
Editors add details? How many of you remember the scenes in "Don't Look Back" where Bob Dylan rips Time Magazine up one side and down the other for lying? The reporter concedes that, as a rule, editors do rewrite the articles.
#1 Posted by gravymeister, CJR on Sat 1 Aug 2009 at 03:47 PM
It is incomprehensible to me how a story with apparently zero mention of a wafer being slipped into a pocket suddenly gains such a reference through the editing process. Was there discussion to that effect? Some speculation? This story needs further explaining.
#2 Posted by Pam, CJR on Sun 2 Aug 2009 at 09:13 AM
A copy editor is just like a goalkeeper. He may have deflected hundreds of goal attempts in a match, but he's eternally condemned for that single successful shot.
#3 Posted by Ares Gutierrez, CJR on Sun 9 Aug 2009 at 11:34 AM
Wow! It's just like watching Fox News.
#4 Posted by Doc, CJR on Mon 10 Aug 2009 at 02:02 PM
The copy editor as a goalkeeper analogy is accurate as long as the goalkeeper doesn't bring his own ball and put it in the net on purpose.
#5 Posted by HotSauce, CJR on Mon 10 Aug 2009 at 04:54 PM
"Which brings me back to the wafer. We know that an editor inserted the inaccurate information. But there’s so much we don’t know: who they are, why they did it, and.."
Here in Canada there is Conservative minority gov't after a long rule by the Liberals. The conservatives managed to merge three rightish parties into one to gain power but the media have gone to great effort informing us that the Prime Minister is an evangelical Protestant as if akin to some US-style neo-con fundamentalist Republican party. Their favourite doomsday comparison.
The PM attended a state funeral for a highly regarded former Liberal who was Catholic. The video of the communion wafer (did he eat it or pocket it) became a three week national media frenzy in trying to vilify the PM.
The newspaper publisher had direct family connections to the Atlantic province's wealthiest industrialist, known as life long Liberal supporters. The Liberal leaders director of communications (now resigned) is directly connected to the implicated publisher and editor. No one is asking questions.
All media in all ten provinces fanned the flames of this story for three weeks and no reporters across Canada uncovered the answer as to who and why.
Most Canadians are quite pragmatic with religious issues and the religious card did not ring true or resonate with the average person. The media was very slow to grasp the national mood.
It was the last gasp desperate gotcha politics from the Liberal party just turfed out. It was corrupt near leaderless opposition who had grown far too complacent to lead the country yet again.
So no media in this country has the wherewithall or desire to actually find out the answer to your earlier question of who and why. Ridiculous.
#6 Posted by Randall, CJR on Mon 21 Dec 2009 at 04:21 PM