If you’re reading this, it means I have successfully gotten a picture of myself published in The Bruin for the first time. Congratulations to me, and even more to you for picking up this newspaper. Before reading further, please take a few minutes to reward yourself by appreciating my handsome features.
Why did this take so long? Because I am a copy editor. My job is to make the paper easier on your eyes, and while replacing our content with pictures of myself would do the trick, my superiors insist that editing stories is a better use of everyone’s time.
For an example of what I do, the beginning of the previous paragraph’s second sentence could be, “Due to the fact that I am a copy editor.” Go ahead, read the beginning of the paragraph like that.
Awful, wasn’t it? It is my solemn duty to prevent these and similar written miscarriages. Somebody has to protect our readers from unnecessary commas, uncapitalized words after colons and our myriad writers’ copious overuse of the words “myriad” and “copious.”
Of course, that’s only one part of the job. Fact-checking is also one of our responsibilities, one that we don’t take lightly. For example, when the editor in chief says that replacing Monday’s Opinion section with a full-page portrait of me is a terrible idea, it’s my job to point out that he’s wrong.
We also write headlines. That’s right, writers don’t write their own headlines. We sometimes even write headlines for stories that haven’t been written yet. I’m personally waiting for a theater review of a four-act musical about Abraham Lincoln’s seven years working at a disco so I can write the headline “Four scores and seven years a go-go.”
Easily the most arcane aspect of the job is that of “style,” which details the use of grammar, punctuation and other written conventions that keep our paper consistent across hundreds of stories.
Note that the sentence, “Over fifteen of First Lady Michelle Obama’s friends do not agree that a portrait of Robert Goldberg should be displayed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” contains four style errors. It should read, “More than 15 of first lady Michelle Obama’s friends agree that a portrait of Robert Goldberg should be displayed at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.”
If checking facts, correcting style and replacing words that don’t mean what writers think they mean doesn’t sound exciting to you, keep in mind that copy editors are essentially ninjas.
My official title is “slot editor,” or “slotter” for short, so the job’s name rhymes with what ninjas do to their enemies. Like ninjas, copy editors are very attractive but rarely seen and, like ninjas, when copy editors do their jobs right, nobody even knows that they’re there. That means that, regardless of how many errors copy editors catch, they rarely receive much personal recognition.
As is the case with ninjas, though, that’s OK. The real satisfaction comes not from accolades or glory but from having done “a crappy job well,” and to have done it not for oneself but for others.
It has been an honor to work with my Copy desk comrades, and to serve you, our readers, for the past three years.
You may now reward yourself for reading this column by looking at my mug once more.
Goldberg was a slot editor from 2009-2011 and a Copy contributor for 2008-2009.