News-Record.com

The latest Yes Weekly story on the libel suit against The Rhinoceros Times and Jerry Bledsoe over his series "Cops in Black and White" has this quote by John Hammer, editor of the weekly.

"I talked with Jerry Bledsoe about the series; however, I took no specific actions as editor-in-chief of The Rhinoceros Times which relate to fact checking what appeared in his series or to corroborate the facts which appear in his series. Similarly, newspapers throughout the country do not routinely corroborate facts they obtain from other news sources, such as the Associated Press, the New York Times News Service or the Washington Post News Service."

Two points:

First, on a story of this magnitude and with these sorts of allegations, the SOP at traditional newspapers is for a variety of editors to review primary source materials. If we are going to publish the story we want to understand exactly what we have....and what we don't have. We want ensure we're fair and accurate. We want consider all the story angles. We may have the story reviewed by lawyers to ensure we stay on the right side of defamation law.

Then, when questions arise about the accuracy and fairness of the work -- as they have with the Rhino's series -- we go back and question the reporter, making sure that we got it right. Given the number of people that have questioned and disputed the work, I'm surprised that John says he "took no specific actions" to check the accuracy of the work he has published for two years.

If he isn't editing Jerry's work, it would be interesting to know who is.

Second, comparing the work Jerry has done with the AP or the New York Times is a stretch. Those wire services have editors, and the newspapers where the stories come from originally have editors. At some point along the line -- usually at the originating paper -- stories are vetted. That said, it is a legally defensible position that the wire service is liable for a published wrong, rather than each individual newspaper that runs the offending story.

If I were Jerry, I would be looking for my own lawyer.

We editors in the rarified air of the ivory tower have a magical vision of how the newsroom works.

Back on Planet Earth, things work a bit differently.

Oh, editors expect stories to be well-written, at expected length and in by deadline. And some even meet those three expectations.

But some don't.

National editor Janet Brindle Reddick has applied her immense mathematical prowess to come up with the three-L rule. A story can be late, long or lousy, but can only fit one of those criteria. She explains:

* If it's late, but clean, and at budgeted length, we can get it through the system quickly.

* If it's on time and at length, we have time to rework it.

And by extension, if it's late and too long, then there's no time to cut a well-written piece deftly and it gets whacked with a dull ax. If it's lousy and late, lipstick is slapped on that pig. The best scenario is when it is lousy and long; readers unconsciously thank the editor who cuts it.

And if it is all three, someone gets a new one chewed.

These are the kinds of useful things I learn when I drift out of the tower. Scary, huh?

Alan Mutter, one of the more insightful journalism commentators out there, poses a provocative, confounding question that has been examined by every newspaper editor in the country over the past few years of contraction: How many editors can a newspaper afford?

While it would be heretical at most major news organizations to "railroad" stories from a reporter's keyboard directly into print, several publications, including a few surprisingly large ones, are allowing reporters to point, click and post words and images directly to the newspaper's website. If the work is good enough to slap on the web without further human intervention, why isn't it good enough to go directly on a web press?

On the other hand, a compelling case can be made that newspapers would debase themselves journalistically, commercially and, perhaps, even fatally by abandoning the disciplined reporting and professional editing that makes their content uniquely valuable in an age of frequently impulsive, often repulsive and usually unverified Twittering.

Does a story need to be edited by more than one person? (Sentence corrected after editing by reader in comments!) In fact, if the writer is good enough and understands his audience, does the story need to be edited at all? Most bloggers don't have editors, outside of their own inner compass, which is an argument both for and against independent editors, depending upon your point of view.

Here the typical story is edited two or three times. A sensitive or important story is edited by as many as five or six. Yes, and even then, typos and spelling errors sneak their way into print. Meanwhile, an online story is edited once, and bloggers aren't edited, unless they request it.

My experience is that publishers and process engineers question editors because it appears as if the service they perform is rework. If the writers did the job right, why would we need someone to check it? Of course, editors do much more than edit copy. They teach. We aren't the New York Times. Reporters don't come to us fully baked. (No one does, actually.) Editors help guide coverage. They listen to readers and act as the reader's advocate, questioning assumptions and plugging holes. They think about tomorrow and next week and next month, trying to see the forest rather than the trees.

We have also developed specialists. A good conceptual editor who can inspire reporters may not be a good technical editor who can find grammatical flaws or write pithy headlines. And with an operation that starts at 7 a.m. and ends after midnight, you need people who span two work shifts.

All of that is to say that the number of times a story is edited is only partially relevant to the number of editors needed. Personally, I take the traditional line. I think a typical print story should be read by two editors, the one who assigned the story and worked with the reporter in the pre-editing stage, and a copy editor.

Online stories are different. Print is permanent. Online, we can post-edit, and readers serve as editors, pointing out mistakes and asking questions. The record can be changed. The story in paper is static; the story online evolves.

Editors make up about 20% of our staff. Are we top heavy with editors? I don't think so, and I doubt the retired English teachers I hear from would either.

I have covered enough press conferences to know how hard it is to get quotes exactly right. Reporters and cameramen are jostling and talking, and the speaker is occasionally mumbling. Then you have reporters who unconsciously correctly grammatical slips and edit out a sentence that may not add anything. So it doesn't surprise me when quotes are slightly off. Disappoints, but doesn't surprise.

I noticed that in two separate stories we had slightly different versions of UNC Coach Roy Williams explaining his conversation with Ty Lawson about playing last night. We weren't alone. (It's possible these came from different conversations with Williams, but that seems unlikely.)

*******

Roy Williams asked Lawson before the game began if he could go.
"I don't know,"' Lawson said.
"Then we're not going to play," Williams said.
-- News & Record

*******

"It was really an easy decision," said UNC coach Roy Williams. "He came to me and said, 'I don't know. It doesn't feel good.' I said, 'Then you're not going to play.'"
-- News & Record

*******

"He came to me and he said, 'I don't know,'" Williams said. "He said, 'It doesn't feel good,' and I said, 'Well, we're not going to play.'"
-- Durham Morning Herald

*******

"It was an easy decision," Williams said. "I told him if he had doubts about it, I wasn't going to play him. I asked him, and he said: 'I don't know.'"
-- Winston-Salem Journal

*******

"It was an easy decision," coach Roy Williams said of the choice, made about 15 minutes before tipoff, not to play the Lawson. "I told him if we had doubts about it I wasn't going to play him. I asked and he said, 'I don't know' and the decision was that I wasn't going to play him. He came to me and said, 'I don't know,' and he said he didn't feel good. So I said he wasn't going to play."
-- The News & Observer

*******

"It was an easy decision. I told him if we had doubts about it I wasn't going to play him. I asked and he said, 'I don't know' and the decision was that I wasn't going to play him. So it was pretty easy. He came to me and said, 'I don't know' and he said he didn't feel good. So, I said he wasn't going to play."
-- Scout.com

I don't recall the photo spread in the New York Times fashion magazine referenced by public editor Clark Hoyt in his column today. The magazine apparently has some photos of a 17-year-old model that were considered inappropriate by some, including Hoyt.

Whatever. I've commented on fashion photo spreads in the Times before.

To me, the more interesting point the column illustrates is the disagreement among top editors of the Times about what's publishable and what's not. The editor of the Times thinks the photos are OK. The editor in charge of standards at the Times does not. The editor of the magazine does. Hoyt does not.

Many people think newsrooms operate in lock-step -- a liberal conspiracy!!!??? -- and that decisions are simple and consensual. Hardly. While I don't know the Times hierarchy, my guess is that, like most newsrooms, such disagreements are considered healthy and part of the operating structure.