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Hmmmmm,
I think being an editor is difficult.
I think being a great editor is a rare occurance.
An editor, contrary to a post in the earlier thread, does not try to change the tone of any article. If an editor sees an article that is unacceptable in quality or even content he has the ability to simply kill the article completely.
When I write professional (actually semi-professionally) I have my style that signifies who I am. I would hope that no editor would edit my style away. Yet, I would hope that same editor would catch spelling errors, grammatical misfunctions, and just stupid sentence structure.
Editors are faced on one hand of having egomaniacal writers and also trying to figure out if the average reader can understand the piece as written.
All writers are eventually faced with editing. It is a damage to the ego to see your words changed . . . when I write I KNOW exactly what I mean to say . . . when edited I feel the piece losses both style and substance.
Editors will always "win."
Editors have a bigger picture to face than any single writer.
When I wrote in the print media I was always dealing with deadlines and editors did not always have time to pass changes back to me for approval. I saw some of my best work missing arms and legs because of the red pencil . . . but I made it through that.
Seldom does any editing make an article better. Editing does make articles more readable.
Netzines are a new media perhaps their rules are different. I have read people like Herb Caen, Tex Maule, Dan Jenkins and Frank Deford and have NEVER seen an editor's comment printed in their stories (unless that note ADDS further information about an issue).
In the specfic example of the Editor's Note in Chad's article I was confused the first time I read the note. However, when I reread the note it was clear to me (afterall it said Ed. Note) that the line was clearly attributed to Carl.
Interesting thread, sorry we lost it.
Tee
[Edited by Tim C on Aug 19th, 2004 at 04:03 PM]
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