Editing for Today's Newsroom A Guide for Success in a Changing Profession [Hardcover]

Editing for Today's Newsroomprovides training, support and advice for prospective news editors. Through history, analyses, and anecdotes, this book offers a solid grounding to prepare potential editors for the full range of their responsibilities in today's newsrooms: developing ideas; evaluating and editing copy; working with writers; determining what is news; understanding presentation and design; directing news coverage; managing people; making decisions under pressure; and coping with a variety of ethical, legal, and professional considerations, all while operating in todays multimedia, multiplatform news arena. Author Carl Sessions Stepp focuses on editors as newsroom decision makers and quality controllers; accordingly, the book features strategies and techniques for coping with a broad spectrum of editing duties. Covering basic and advanced copyediting skills, it also provides intellectual context to the editor's role, critically examining the history of editing and the changing job of the contemporary editor.

Contents

Preface xi

1 The Changing World of Editing

The Chronic Shortage of Editors 6

Lifestyles of the Nonrich and the Nonfamous 7

The Changing Nature of Journalism 11

Conclusion 14

Sidebar 1Experiences in Editing 15

2 The Rise of the New Editor 21

The Editor in History 22

The Editor As Businessperson 26

The Editor As Planner 29

The Editor As Manager 30

The Editor As Journalist 31

Conclusion 33

Sidebar 2Defining the Typical Editor: How Come So

Many of Them Tend to be Geeks?

by David Barry 34

3 What Is an Editor? 38

How Writers See Editors 39

How Editors See Themselves 43