No. 01 for February 2002
There are six
questions that editors, especially copy editors, should ask themselves every
time they handle a story – and they are not who, what, when, where, why
and how.
These other
six go to the broader purpose of what we do and what we try to produce every
day for readers – a clear report of what goes on in their communities and
the world.
Who cares?
So what? What does it mean?
When I was an
Associated Press news editor, those were on a card – one I got at a
journalism seminar years ago – atop my computer. They were a reminder not
only during editing, but to begin asking them when the story is in its infancy,
still being discussed between reporter and editor.
It’s
easy to forget these three. We get immersed in the process or subject and
forget that the core of our jobs is answering those questions for our readers.
If the reporter doesn’t do it, the editor must. And if the editor
doesn’t, then the copy desk should pursue them as much as, if not more
than, a misplaced comma.
We can have
the most pristine, grammatically correct and elegantly written stories, yet if
they don’t answer these three questions, our readers will drift away.
Do I
understand what this means, what the writer is saying?
One of the
first things we try to teach in copy editing is, if nothing else, do no harm.
Read the story through and understand what the writer is trying to say before
plunging in. But in my almost 30 years in newsrooms, broadcast and print, I
have seen more battles and hard feelings because this question wasn’t asked
on the desk first. I’ve been guilty of it; I’m sure that under the
press of deadlines, most of us have.
But it’s
more than just about keeping peace in the newsroom. It’s about helping
the reader.
You’re
on deadline with three pages to close. You’re reading a story and come to
a rough spot. You think you know what it means – maybe you dimly remember
a previous story about it – so you make a couple quick fixes and move on.
But did you
really understand it, or did you just rationalize that you did?
And if you can’t
be sure you understood it to fix it, how can you be sure the reader won’t
have the same problem? Our readers are under the same deadline pressure we are
as they juggle getting out to work or getting children off to school; as they
share their time among our newspaper, the TV, the radio, the CD or the phone;
and as they fight off drowsiness after a long day.
How do I/we know this?
We don’t
ask this enough. The evidence is in our corrections columns.
Asked more
often, this could prevent the things that readers told The Freedom Forum erode
the credibility of our work. (If you have not read “Best Practices for
Newspaper Journalists,” it’s worth getting a copy.)
This question
also would prompt our scrutiny every time we make one of those “everyone
just knows this” assertions. Reporters immersed in a story can forget
that everyone may not just know it. Worse, it may be wrong. And many times such
things are innocent, a product of retelling a subject that already is largely
familiar, or in separating attribution while trying to make another point.
Readers who aren’t privy to a reporter’s notes notice these things.
We should, too.
Does this
make sense?
This may be
the greatest question a writer, but especially an editor and the copy desk, can
ask on behalf of the reader and our own credibility.
Had it been
asked, then perhaps a newspaper would not recently have told us about a
“12-year-old” sudden infant death syndrome victim. Was it 12
months? But then why not say 1 year? Maybe it was 12 weeks?
If we wonder,
what will the reader do? Most likely, that reader will not wonder, but wander.
“The slightest excuse is sufficient (for readers) to bail out,”
said Howard Tyner, former editor of the Chicago Tribune and now vice president of publishing for the
Tribune Co.
Had it been
asked, as was noted at last year’s American Copy Editors Society
convention, perhaps the embarrassment of Janet Cooke never would have happened.
Some “does this make sense” questions: Why didn’t teachers
notice the heroin tracks? Why would a dealer supply heroin to a boy who
couldn’t pay? And there were others raised in a session on the Cooke saga
and reported on ACES’ Web site (www.copydesk.org).
If we can avoid one Janet Cooke, one confused reader, one needless
correction, then it’s worth taking time to go beyond the five W’s
and an H and always ask these six questions.
Doug Fisher teaches editing and reporting at the
University of South Carolina College of Journalism and Mass Communications
and can be reached at dfisher@sc.edu or
(803) 777-3315.