Editor, revised

I came to the online world via the night news copy desk. I truly loved parts of that job: editing the wires, writing heds that thousands of people would see, catching mistakes at the 11th hour. But I decided to leave to bolster my resume with online experience.

In some ways, I’m still a copy editor. When I post a story, I edit it (of course). When things are slow, I read the stories I haven’t seen. They’re live by that point, but I figure it’s better to catch the error later than never.

My job also involves news judgment, which I developed doing the wires and laying out local news pages.

I’ve often thought that my copy editing background is what helps me be especially effective in my position. But I’ve wondered whether this is common among online producers.

I found at least one parallel in this list via Mindy McAdams via her colleague. In it recent grad Nick Rosinia, now working for MLB.com, passes on pointers to editing students. I liked his opener:

The new job title is “editorial producer.” It means little else than the Internet is too cool to have “copyeditors,” but you might win a few points with a recruiter if you know it.

He goes on to address writing heds, cutlines and teasers, and the importance of being clean and quick. All things I confront daily, all things that a good copy editor should handle adeptly.

At the end of her post, McAdams writes, “It looks like there will always be jobs for good copy editors.”

I hope she’s right, but I might tweak that statement a little. It looks like there will always be need for good copy editing skills, because in online journalism you often are your own copy editor.

BTW, searching Journalismjobs.com for the keywords “copy editors” turned up 67 listings today, most at daily newspapers. If you’re willing to work in a small town and have little job security, there certainly are jobs for good copy editors right now.

Where will I be working next month? Where will I be working next year? What’s the best platform for this story? How do I learn video storytelling?

These questions speak to one of the biggest challenges facing young journalists today: the need to be agile.

A quick bit of context: I’m writing this to participate in a blog ring of young journalists. This month’s topic relates to the challenges facing young journalists. I’ve been a working journalist for just about three years. And in that time I’ve observed that staying in this field for very long will require flexibility.

As someone else noted, a good attitude will give you a foundation. I want this post to be constructive, not discouraging, so I’m linking to resources that can help you become agile in terms of…

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Since I entered grad school, I’ve been staring down the barrel of a shotgun loaded with questions:

• How can newspapers reverse falling readership and ad revenues?
• How can they compete effectively with other news providers on the Internet?
• How should newspaper journalists change their routines to serve multiple platforms?
• How can newspapers possibly maintain quality and innovate while cutting staff.

Now I’m in the middle of an 11-day assignment from Spokesman-Review Editor Steve Smith aimed at exploring some of those questions and drafting recommendations for restructuring the newsroom. The goals: to be more efficient and produce a more compelling, consistently multiplatform product.

There are eight of us, all relatively young in a newsroom notably filled with talented veterans. Most of us have come out of journalism school within the past four years. The group dynamic is solid.

This is exciting and scary as hell.

One of the other members of the task force, Nick Eaton, has written about this at his blog. Colin Mulvany, the S-R’s multimedia leader, has also posted. As Colin notes,

It’s strange how the people running newspapers have been talking about changing for most of my 20-year career. Yet, all they’ve really done in that time is tinker under the hood a bit.

We are tasked with doing far more than tinkering under the hood. We were picked, according to Steve, because we have a huge stake in what happens to this industry but little stake in the processes and organization that have driven this newspaper in the past.

We have constraints, as Nick notes:

[W]e can’t eliminate the print product, we can’t eliminate the new radio initiative, we can’t eliminate the community-oriented Voice sections, we can’t suggest layoffs.

It’s comforting and intriguing to watch other newspapers wrestle these questions and swing for the fences. Most recently, it’s been the Tampa Tribune. It’s shakeup is outlined on Mindy McAdams’ blog, and reporting intern Jessica DaSilva has a great account of the day Editor Janet Coats outlined the changes to the staff.

There has been grumbling within the newsroom and skepticism from without. But many staffers have quietly wished us well, and comments at Nick’s and Colin’s blogs have also been encouraging.

We’re under a tight deadline. At some meetings, we’ve got so many ideas its hard to chart a path through them.

But the biggest challenge is to be systematic, practical and yet visionary. We are supposed to blow up the newsroom, but, as I think we all feel, the model we propose must be functional. And above all, it must keep the newspaper coming off the press, the Web site (overhaul pending) updated throughout the day and our radio broadcasts filled with local content – and make all of this journalism as compelling as possible.

This may be my best, last chance to throw bold ideas into the mix and have them heard. Given the recent explosion of newspaper layoffs and Steve’s not-good-but-could-be-worse briefing Tuesday on the state of our company’s finances, I’m not optimistic that the business I went to grad school to enter will sustain me until I retire.

But now I’ve got a chance to suggest changes to help an enterprise, to quote Janet Coats, “worth fighting for.” I’ll see what I can do.

I remember walking in my grad school commencement a couple years back. Like most fellow graduates, I was smiling. Unlike quite a few fellow graduates, I was smiling about the achievement AND the fact that I’d already lined up a job.

This week, my former adviser Daryl Moen noted in an email to his listserv of Missouri J School grads that he’s noticed more anxiety among graduating seniors/grad students and fewer of them heading into a full-time job right away. This shouldn’t be surprising if you’re following the industry news.

Fortunately, there are some good collections of advice floating around out there. And they’re not limited to how to get a job. If you’ve got a minute between writing cover letters and updating your resume, check these out.

• Journerdism: “Make organization and the elimination of clutter (especially information clutter) a life long process. Twitter is neat, but addicting and dangerous. We lost a lot of good men in the war to Twitter.”
• Innovation in College Media: “Look beyond what job you’ll be doing and take a look at the snapshot portrait that’s being developed right now about the profession.”
• Online Journalism Blog: “As you do your job, as you walk the streets, as you read the newspapers and browse the messageboards, keep your news sense about you: is something happening that is newsworthy?”
• JournalismJobs.com: Besides publishing tons of help-wanted ads, this site has some good career articles.
• My previous post, while a little tongue in cheek and not about getting a job, offers 15 observations I’ve gained in 24 months in the field. “Somewhere, somehow, there is a perfect nexus of efficiency and quality, and it takes more than two years to find it.”

Today is the two-year anniversary of my full-time status at the Spokesman. That means two years as a full-time newspaper journalist, plus several months of part-timing it in Spokane and Stockton, Calif. I thought I’d take the occasion to note, only somewhat irreverently, a few things I’ve learned along the way. Please add to them.

• It’s wise to pick your battles. Whether you be the newest copy editor or a high-level manager.
• Some people are just afraid of the active voice.
• Play good photos big. Play bad photos even bigger.
• We are supposed to frown upon horse race stories in election years, but sometimes that’s secretly what we really want to read.
• Somewhere, somehow, there is a perfect nexus of efficiency and quality, and it takes more than two years to find it.
• Pay extra close attention when editing stories with repetitions of the word “public.”
• It’s safe, but not advisable, to eat the pizza with the sweaty cheese.
• It’s hard to give hope to journalism students during layoffs.
• If you can learn to talk to readers on the phone with sincerity, respect and conviction, you will be an asset to your newsroom.
• When asking a co-worker to do something, it helps to sit down by them.
• The demand for hopeful news out of Iraq far outstrips the supply.
• Gallows humor has its place when talking about the news, and that place should be full of fellow journalists.
• It’s terrifyingly easy to become inured to body counts and stories of suffering from wars and natural disasters.
• If that happens, take a step back and let the tragedy move you.
• Amid the carnage, take comfort in AP pictures of baby animals, but don’t assume your readers will do the same.