The copy editor is virtually the last man between his newspaper and the public. The copy may have been read several times before it reaches him, but its ultimate form, phraseology and spirit rest in his hands. Mistakes or poor writing that pass him are almost certain to reach the reader in print. They may be detected in the office in time to be corrected, but many such blunders are never discovered except by the newspaper reader.

The greatest weapon of the copy editor in his efforts to eliminate errors is an alertness that challenges every fact, every name, and virtually every word. Every fact should be checked. Those that appear incorrect and cannot be verified must be eliminated. Statements that are absurd or dangerous are deleted without question. Likewise the facts should be weighed against one another to assure consistency.

The function of the copy editor is critical, not creative. Under no circumstances should he rewrite a story completely. It cannot be saved except by being rewritten, that work should be done by a rewrite man or by the reporter who wrote the original story. The desk man must cope with the material that is given him and make the most of it by recasting, striking out superfluous words, and substituting active or colorful words for dead one, expressing a phrase in a word and by other similar means.

The finished product should be concise, forceful, and complete. This should be the copy editor’s aim with every story, not merely with the important ones. A great news story virtually tells itself; it is the brief stories that most often are allowed to slip by with only a few strokes of the pencil to indicate that they have been read. Any story can be improved, even though the editing consists of transposing a word, shifting, a punctuation mark, substituting a concrete word for a general one, or an Anglo-Saxon verb for a Latin one.

Leaving unaltered done word that should be changed is not a trivial matter. The careful copy editor leaves nothing to chance. His object is not only to correct errors, but also to improve.

With a unanimity that is somewhat disconcerting to the copy editor, reporters profess to regard him as mutilator of good copy and there is some ground for this opinion. There are some desk men temperamentally unfitted to make the most of another, man’s writing; their conception of what a story should be is so strong that virtual rewriting is the only course they can follow. Such men must be restrained, and, if they remain copy editors, trained to the viewpoint of the editorial pencil rather than to that of the reportorial typewriter. The general aim of the copy desk is to preserve as far as possible, the words of the reporter, if they express what he desires to convey, and to retain the spirit imparted by him, if it is proper. As the final link in a long and expensive process the copyeditor can destroy the honest work of many reporters.

Article Posted By : prajwal316  On March 01, 2013lView All Articles

Article Source :

http://www.veethi.com/articles/the-copy-editors-role-in-a-newspaper-article-1663.htm

Keywords :
copy , errors