Wall Street Journal: 'The goal is fewer editors, more reporters'
A story in the North Brunswick Sentinel has some valuable updates on the job cuts that are going down at The Wall Street Journal.
Bob Christie, spokesman for The Journal, tells the Sentinel that The Journal will cut 39 jobs from its South Brunswick office, and relocate 11 people to the paper's office in Manhattan (so the '50' number we were all using is a bit off). The 39 who are getting the ax will have a chance to "apply" for positions in New York. The majority of those people were from "the pagination desk and the copyediting desk," he said.
Mr. Christie also concretely lays out the new philosophy of The Journal that we've all been interpreting for a few months: Who needs editors?
"The goal is fewer editors, more reporters," Christie said. "We want to print what the readers want, and that's more stories."
Don't worry, there are other jobs out there for editors.
Yes, readers are obviously clamoring for badly edited copy, and more of it. Nothing irritates a reader more than a lot of thoughtfully edited, decently written news. Bring on the garbage. And show those pesky copy editors the door.
Can we be honest here? There isn't a single reader out there who's saying to anyone, "I want more stories to read, and the condition of those stories when they're published doesn't matter one darned bit to me."
You know what would really stand out among readers? A commitment to quality. A commitment to delivering well-reported, well-edited, well-done stories. Quality counts as much as quantity. Good editing didn't suddenly become irrelevant because of an economic downturn, or because readers got together and agreed that editors could be sent packing.
I'm not sure why we ever needed editors of any sort. Every reporter I've ever known has been highly self-motivated and well-educated in language and style. And spelling. They all could spell like nobody's business and never, ever, not once used it's for its, or their for there. If they ever did, who CARES anyway?
And, of course, editors never have any ideas, or suggestions, none worth noting anyway.
Readers aren't stupid and you've got to give the folks at the WSJ credit for recognizing that. Readers know that all editors are fat, lazy hacks who do nothing but lounge at their desks, feet up, snacking and/or knocking back a few belts of Jim Beam. Just like in the movies!
Editors. Nobody needs 'em. Bravo, Mr. Christie, bravo.
Full disclosure first: I'm an editor, not at the Journal, but I've worked at papers in or near that class. So I'm obviously biased in favor of more and better editing in quality publications.
Alas, I've noticed a deterioration in editing of the Journal's stories for a year or so; maybe nothing the general public will be aghast at, but it's been quite noticeable at the WSJ because its content used to be nearly flawless in that regard.
I shudder to think how much higher the ratio of mistakes per column inch will climb in the "fewer editors, more reporters" scheme. Maybe readers won't notice right away.
But they will notice.
Given Rupert Murdoch's annonced intent to "liven up" the WSJ with "news" the public presumably wants to read, I shudder at the prospect that the WSJ, formerly the most reliable newspaper in the U.S. (but, of course, NOT its hallicunating editorial page), will be transformed into a simulation of his supermarket tabloid toilet tissue rolls. If "more reporters" means wildly imaginative fiction writers and "fewer editors" means "encourage the reporters write any crapola they can concoct" then we will witness the formerly most reliable newspaper in the U.S. flounder under the weight of Murdochian waste management.
Sound like good idea. Me reporter. Me no like editors. They bad. Editors mean.
Does anyone else find it odd that the NYTIMES failed to produce even one article on this topic, especially after they printed Lawrence Downes' editorial observer piece on the death of copy editing about a month ago?
I've noticed increasing errors in the Wall Street Journal. Today I noticed at least two glaring errors. One was a punctuation mistake and the other was a sentences that didn't make sense because of unnecessary words. This was in the paper's lead economic feature on page one! I actually went online to see if anything had been written about copy editors being cut from the paper and found this article.