Sunday, April 10, 2005

Copy Editors Run the Show, of Course

What's missing in this Chicago Tribune account of the Mitch Albom making-stuff-up affair is any sense of whether a mere copy editor could have made substantive changes in Billionaire Superstar's writing without being fired, or whether anyone would have listened if a mere copy editor had mentioned that Billionaire Superstar should wait until things happen before reporting them.

Ideally, of course, a copy editor should have risked his or her job to prevent obviously false statements from being published. (Also ideally, housing and food would be free. Let's not equate letting Mitch be Mitch with standing by while innocents were tortured.)

1 comment:

Bill said...

I made the point about copy editors vs. editors in general in my first version of the post, but I deleted that part because I don't know for sure whether editors other than copy editors looked at the piece in question.