When both reporter and copy editor screw up big-time

Page 3 of Bangalore Times today — that should be "greenbacks" (a colloquial term for the US dollar), not "green bags".

• ALSO READ: When subs fall asleep on the job

When subs fall asleep on the job

From today's Times of India

a. In an interview with labour minister Parameshwara Naik by Sandeep Moudgal on Page 4:

"The ingenuity of these posts is to be verified."

I think that should read "The genuineness of these posts is to be verified."

b. In a report headlined "Zika fears: Olympic champ freezes sperm" on Page 20:

"... the couple were increasingly worried about mosquito-born Zika..."

I think that should read "mosquito-borne Zika".

***

Q. What's wrong with that picture? Can you "point" out the issues?

A. It's "U.S.", not "U.S".

***

Q. What's wrong with that headline?

A. At the very least, it should read "Tamannaah speaks on why Katappa killed Baahubali!"

• Read an earlier post on the subject here. And then read this post: Why subs, or copy editors, are the lifeblood of a news organisation.

Every writer needs an editor. Or, why subs are worth their weight in gold

I am a huge, huge fan of Poynter. In my opinion, it is the No. 1 journalism site. Which is why there are numerous pieces on The Reading Room that refer to articles that were first published on Poynter.org.

The most recent Poynter post is a brilliant example of writing that not only promotes good journalism but also offers a new way to think about some of the processes involved in putting together a good story. The post, by Alison MacAdam, is titled "Journalism has an editing crisis, but we can do something about it".

Unfortunately, the column is also a good example of the time-honoured dictum: Every writer (including Alison MacAdam) needs an editor.

Here are the comments I posted after I read the column this morning:

Ramesh Prabhu • 4 hours ago In India, too, there is an immense lack of strong editors. Which is why I tell my students (I teach journalism at a media college in Bangalore) good subs, or copy editors, are worth their weight in gold. Having said that, may I point out an editing error in this piece? "We now create far more content that any reasonable human being could ever read..." should have been edited to read "We now create far more content than any reasonable human being could ever read..."

Ramesh Prabhu • 4 hours ago Also, "...we’re 'creating content' for 25-34 year-old women or Latino millennials" should have been edited to read "...we’re 'creating content' for 25- to 34-year-old women or Latino millennials." Suspensive hyphenation, anyone?

I'm not the only one who has spotted errors in the article:

MM Greene  Hugh Vandivier • 8 hours ago Don't forget the three misplaced cases of "only." Look, editors exist!

N.B: Don't let the editing issues detract from the sound argument Alison MacAdam is making on behalf of editors. You can read the post in its entirety here.

Also read:

Suspensive hyphenation

Why subs, or copy editors, are the lifeblood of a news organisation

And this is what happens when subs fall asleep on the job

Point your mouse to Poynter... and to Roy Peter Clark

We can't ignore typos in a blog post by a sub-editor, can we?

10 interesting — and relevant — articles to inspire media professionals, especially young journalists and journalism aspirants

1. "The best farewell address by a journalist":

‘At The [NY] Times, you can imagine yourself making journalism that changes the world’

• "This so inspiring," wrote Commitscion Barkha Joshi (Class of 2016) on my Facebook wall soon after I posted this link yesterday.

2. Taking magazine cover design to new heights:

How they did it: "Behind the Making of Our Walking New York Cover"

3. An essay adapted from Tales from the Great Disruption: Insights and Lessons from Journalism’s Technological Transformation, by Michael Shapiro, Anna Hiatt, and Mike Hoyt:

"The Value of News"

An excerpt:

... I can think of no better distillation of what exists at the heart of the relationship between journalism and its audiences than the phrase that Lisa Gubernick, a wonderful journalist at Forbes and the Journal, used to open every single conversation, professional and personal. She would ask, “What’s new and interesting?”

4. Journalists talk about what is perhaps their greatest fear:

"Fear of screwing up"

An excerpt:

To be a journalist, you have to be afraid. Fear makes you triple-check your work. It makes you sharper, faster, more focused. It wakes you up in the middle of the night, or drops in unexpectedly at that party or dinner. Fear demands that you be absolutely sure you want to say every little thing you’re saying. 

"I have enough fear to do my job well. Brilliant article," wrote Commitscion Abira Banerjee (Class of 2015) on my Facebook wall the day after I posted this link.

5. Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron on journalism’s transition from print to digital:

“Journalism’s Big Move: What to Discard, Keep, and Acquire in Moving From Print to Web”

 

6. Rolling Stone magazine and the controversial university rape article:

Do scandals like Rolling Stone’s do lasting damage to journalism?

An excerpt:

While many agreed Rolling Stone’s failure harmed the media’s reputation, they also said it and the industry could repair the damage. The larger threats to journalism, many of them added, are more gradual systemic changes, from the implosion of business models to false balance in public “controversies.”

7. "A year after the firings of two top women editors, four journalism leaders discuss the challenges of editing while female."

"Can you think about rising?"

8. "Many writers are fond of semicolons; we use them a lot; even when we shouldn’t; and we often don’t know how to use them. (One clue: not the way we just did.)"

"To semicolon, or not to semicolon"

9. A well-deserved tribute to veteran journalist P. Sainath and his team:

"Documenting India's Villages Before They Vanish"

An excerpt:

So far, Sainath has recruited more than 1,000 volunteers for the archive project, ranging from 30-year veterans of the journalism business to software engineers who’ve written nary a word. They’ve documented some fascinating characters. One of them is a 73-year-old librarian who manages a trove of 170 classics, mostly translations of Russian masters, in a tiny forest village frequented by wild elephants.

Also read: A savvy, must-watch documentary on the peerless P. Sainath

10. "Copy-editing can be a great job. I’ve always been grateful for the work and especially for the people I’ve met, copy editors, fact checkers, editors, and writers alike."

"Workers of the word, unite"

• Also read: All hail the Comma Queen!

All hail the Comma Queen!

When a copy editor of the Salon e-zine chats up the copy editor of New Yorker magazine who also happens to have published a book about her profession, what results is an interview that puts the spotlight on a vital job: editing.

Here is a sample Q&A: 

Q: Schools are teaching grammar a lot less and relying on technology and word processing programmes to “teach” it by default, pointing out grammar mistakes. Do you think this, not to mention texting and tweeting, will have a significant effect on the grammar and spelling of future adults? 

A: That’s not a very nice way to learn, just by having your mistakes pointed out. But there are fun ways to do it: “Schoolhouse Rock,” for instance, and pop music. Lately, Weird Al Yankovic has been singing about grammar and usage. Texting and tweeting shouldn’t really affect grammar, though spell-check programmes and autocorrect will have an effect on spelling. I believe that the only way to learn English grammar is to study a foreign language.

MARY NORRIS: COPY THAT!

Q: Your profanity chapter is full of hilarious examples of language writers are competing to get into the magazine. One piece by Ben McGrath debuted “bros before hos” in the New Yorker, creating a spelling dilemma with “hos”—hmm, I see that Webster’s gives the plural of “ho” as either “hos” or “hoes.” Where do you turn if it’s not in the dictionaries of record? 

A: When a word is not in Webster’s or Random House, I will look online. There are many dictionaries of slang, but you have to choose your source carefully. One of our sources is the New York Times, but of course it’s no good for profanity! One feels so silly looking up “jism,” say (though there are variant spellings), and even sillier querying it. You try to find a respectable source for the profanity, and it is a bit of a challenge. Rap lyrics, especially.

Read this fascinating feature in its entirety here: New Yorker copyeditor dishes on the wacky side of her (quite dignified) job: “One feels so silly looking up [profanity]” 

• ALSO READ: "Workers of the Word, Unite"

• ADDITIONAL READING: Why subs, or copy editors, are the lifeblood of a news organisation

And this is what happens when subs fall asleep on the job

This news report — see below — was printed in the now-defunct Vijay Times, a Bangalore newspaper, on December 26, 2003. I use it every year to point out to my students that sub-editors, or copy editors, play a very important role in newspaper production and this is what can happen when a sub falls asleep on the job:

Here's the text of the report:

BE AWARE OF 'FAKE'
POLICE IN SHIMOGA

Shimoga: The ladies of the city listen here. If anybody told you as police being called you, just shout for help. Attract the people who are being around you. Then only you could preserve your jewellers from the miscreants.

Yes… two miscreants in the city have been making fool to the omen who are having jewelleries as the disguised themselves as police. They will be compelled you to pack your golds and ran away with those valuables.

This type of cases are very common in the city where no much cases have been registered in the police station due to the ignorance of the police officials. Even though four cases have been registered in Jayanagar Police Station. The same incident had occurred near Usha Nursing Home on Wednesday night.

Fortunately, the golds had been protected of the courage of two gentlemen in a hotel nearby the nursing home. The police have been finding them. The miscreants are yet to be find.

The same miscreants again cheated a women near Oxford School. They eloped with golds which worth Rs 25,000. Therefore the house are hereby requested to be careful if anybody call as police. Please shout
for help.

The real police might have been sleeping. You have to protect yourself and your valuables!

• Vijay Times and its sister paper, Vijay Karnataka, were bought by The Times of India group in 2006. Vijay Times ceased publication on June 7, 2007. It was replaced by Bangalore Mirror.

Are subs a disappearing breed? Is that why there are so many typos in our newspapers? Also: How do Times group journalists deal with Medianet?

Here's Meenal Baghel, the founder and editor in chief of the Mirror (Mumbai Mirror, Bangalore Mirror, etc.), responding to a question on why the Mirror has a number of typos:

I think there is a very real problem with journalism today, and it’s not only limited to Mirror. The problem is that the deskie is a disappearing breed. And it’s going to be a big challenge over the next few years. Also, there are very real problems we are facing, and these are going to change the profession drastically. It’s so rare to find people who want to come into journalism because they want to be journalists. For example, when you ask people, ‘Who edited this copy?’. Invariably the response will be: ‘I looked at it/I glanced at it/I skimmed through it.’

And here's the Q&A concerning Medianet:

Being a hard-edged journalist, how do you reconcile with something like Medianet?
That’s easy, because we don’t have Medianet in Mirror.


But it’s there in your group.
It doesn’t affect my life, so I don’t care about it.


You aren’t asked to carry plugs?
No. And it’s one of the things that has pleasantly surprised me. They have maintained the Chinese wall from the start.


They have left you alone?
Yes. And there’s another reason. Mirror is a small paper in the group, so it’s not necessarily the focus. We are a small cog in comparison.


Have you ever been asked to drop a story?
(Pauses) Not drop a story. I think what one learns over a period of time is that you have to pick your battles. I’ll give you an example: If there’s an entertainment story which is coming right ahead of the Filmfare awards, where somebody is going to be performing, and I have a damaging story on that person, would I delay it by a few days? Yes, I would.

• Read the full interview here: "Our battle is to out-think TOI: Meenal Baghel". (Ignore the PR-ish elements in the standfirst.)

• Thank you for the alert, Nilofer D'Souza. 

• Also read: "Why subs, or copy editors, are the lifeblood of a news organisation".

"A good copy editor is a reporter’s best friend"

The role of the copy editor in the newsroom remains an adversarial one. There’s no getting round that; copy editing requires critical analysis of other people’s work. It can lead to tension. Smart leaders try to defuse that tension and foster constructive relationships among groups of journalists. They correctly point out that a good copy editor is a reporter’s best friend — someone who will head off mistakes, is a trusted sounding board for risk-taking writing, and burnishes the reporter’s copy with headlines that invite the reader. Improving relationships between copy editors and the rest of the newsroom needs to be an important factor in our deliberations.

— From "Copy Editors: Journalism’s Interior Linemen", a tribute by Gene Foreman, who was the deputy editor and vice president of the Philadelphia Inquirer when he wrote this piece for Poynter.org in August 2002.

• Also read: "What it means to be a newspaper sub" and "Why subs are the lifeblood of a news organisation".

What it means to be a newspaper sub-2

In What it means to be a newspaper sub-1, Commits alumnus Debmalya Dutta (Class of 2011) offered personal insights into the duties and responsibilities of a newspaper sub. Here, his senior, SHERRY-MARY JACOB (Class of 2007), who is a senior sub with The Times of India in Bangalore, writes about the most vital part of the job:

SHERRY-MARY JACOB

If you thought subbing is easy, think again. We all know that one of the responsibilities of subs is to act as gatekeepers. But there's more to “gatekeeping” than just publishing authenticated news. The challenge begins with us trying to figure out what a reporter is trying to convey. This is the most vital part of our job; after all, it is the sub who acts as a conduit between the reporter and reader.      

To understand better what it is we do, I have given below two versions of a crime story. The first version is the report that was submitted to the news desk; the second version is the edited story that was published in the paper. (I should make it clear here that it's the reporter's job to get us the right facts — the news reports do not necessarily have to be written in flawless English. At ToI, we have some of the hardest-working and most intelligent reporters in the city who submit the best newsworthy stories every day, which is reflected in our daily editions.)

RAW VERSION
Mandya: In an allegedly intentional fire happening, miscreants set a gift shop ablaze at Sangam, a tourist place on the banks of Cauvery river near Srirangapatna town on Friday night.

According to SI Ramesh, a gift shops belongs to the one Ajay who was gutted in the fire. Ajay in his complaint alleged that three known human beings to him set his shop ablaze as they developed a grudge behind him. Ajay said in his complaint that items worth Rs more than Rs 2 lakh also destroyed.

Based on complaint, we arrested Naveen, Paramesh and Krishna. We are interrogat the arrested persons also calculating the actual loss occurred to complainant, Ramesh said.

A case has been registered in Srirangapatna police station.

EDITED VERSION

Miscreants set gift shop ablaze

Mandya: A few miscreants set a gift shop ablaze on Friday night at Sangam, a tourist spot on the banks of the Cauvery near Srirangapatna.

Sub-inspector Ramesh said the shop belongs to one Ajay. In his complaint, Ajay has charged three persons, who are known to him, with committing the crime. He said the three men were nursing a grudge against him. Gift articles worth over Rs 2 lakh have been gutted, he said.

Acting on the complaint, police have arrested Naveen, Paramesh and Krishna. Ramesh said they are interrogating the trio. A case has been registered at the Srirangapatna police station.

This is just one of the stories that landed in my lap the other day. Of course, I have seen worse. There was one which began with this killer line: "A case of forceful enjoyment was filed." What the reporter meant to convey was that a case of rape had been filed.

We generally get 20 to 30 such news reports (each could be 800 words long), which have to be edited in two hours. Sounds bad? You think our job sucks? Well, it certainly doesn't! We wait to get our hands on such stories so that we can bring some sparkle to them.

In conclusion, let me say that subbing is more than just knowing how to use QuarkXPress, placing words on the page, and writing a few headlines. It's like solving a puzzle. It's interesting, challenging, and, in many ways, a stress-buster.

• Also read: Why subs are the lifeblood of a news organisation.

What it means to be a newspaper sub-1

DEBMALYA DUTTA

Commits alumnus DEBMALYA DUTTA (Class of 2011), who is a sub-editor with The Statesman in Kolkata, offers personal insights into the duties and responsibilities of a newspaper sub: 

SCENE 1
R: You [expletive deleted], what did you do to my baby yesterday? Do you know how much I had to work to bring it to shape? And you just deformed it at will!
S: But it just couldn't be helped. Do understand. There really wasn’t enough room to fit it all in.
R: I don’t give a damn about your room. I’m going to speak to the boss; I’ll make sure you lose this room of yours!
S: But… Well, wish you all the best.

SCENE 2

S: Sir, the whole body won’t fit in the box!
E: Hack off the parts that are not useful, my son. Do I now have to teach you how to do the job? Give me a break….
S: Okay, I’ll make sure the task is carried out without a hue and cry.
E: That’s my boy! But do take care not to kill it.
S: Aye aye, Captain.
E: By the way, great job on R’s baby yesterday. Cheers!

No, this isn’t the script for another gore flick. Neither is the setting some gothic dungeon, and nor are these men spellers of doom (although they are quite capable of spelling doom. But that’s another story). The conversations were taking place in the editorial department of a newspaper. And the men? The Holy Trinity comprising the pugnacious reporter R, the dynamic editor E, and the durable sub S. Welcome to the life of a newspaper sub!

THE EFFECT (OR IS IT AFFECT?) OF A MISPLACED A/E
No doubt basics are boring, in which case subs must first change their middle name to “boring” (just kidding). Clearly, the basics — spellings and grammar — have to be spot-on. One doesn’t have to be a Formula 1 ace in the language, but one must make sure there aren’t too many pit-stops (as in mistakes). Over-confidence, trust me, is the bane of a deskman or -woman, and one must learn to fully use the three boons one always finds at one’s disposal: the good old dictionary, the new age internet, and the reassuring newsroom senior. No one is infallible but it’s heart-wrenching to see the newspaper apologising to the public because you made a mistake. All ye aspiring sub-editors, believe me, a rejoinder is the last thing you’d want to place on your page!

I WISH TEN SYNONYMS FOR ‘GOVERNMENT’
WERE ON THE TIP OF MY TONGUE
Although we can always consult Mr. Page and Mr. Brin, deadline pressures often do not allow us that luxury. Knowing your synonyms (some basic ones, at least) is a big help, especially when writing headlines and captions, because we subs are always battling against time and for space (thanks, respectively,  to the circulation and advertisement departments about whom we crib often, though we all know that without these worthies there would be no newspaper in the first place. After all, it is the ad revenue that brings in the money and it is the circulation people who send out the paper to readers).

Aspiring subs will want to know: Is there a sure-to-work mantra that will help you achieve the unachievable? Yes, there is… reading! Reading not only newspapers, but also books. My vote goes to non-fiction, though I must say I admire the immense talent involved in referring to a vampire or a werewolf by an unthinkable number of synonyms. Indeed, the dawn of literature is breaking, it seems. Anyway, even if you know a limited number of words, try to know their correct usage and never ever, I repeat, never ever use fancy figures of speech (you don’t want to end up looking like a moron because of a misused oxymoron).

A SCYTHE OR A SCALPEL?
Remember, the scythe is for communists. For us journalists, the weapon of choice (not of mass destruction) is always the scalpel. Or chisel, because I like to compare my job to that of a sculptor.

The reporters present you with just the frame (no offence intended, friends). It’s up to the sub to mould it into a desirable piece of sculpture by, where necessary, chiselling away the unwanted parts. The frame-maker might not be happy with the end result, but it is understood that the sub is the last watchdog; as such, it is the sub’s prerogative to tweak a story keeping many factors in mind: the readers, the newspaper’s image, the page deadlines.

Having said that, subs must curb the tendency to rewrite everything that comes their way. Sure, it may feel good to leave your signature on the copy, but, first, time is not on our side, and, second, a good sub’s work is, by definition, supposed to be invisible. So whenever you feel that urge to make things exceptionally better, just remember the words of wisdom offered to John Lennon by Mother Mary.

There might be times, though, when you are forced to resort to a lawnmower because even a scythe won’t help when you have to fit a 700-word story into a modified single column. On such occasions, quickly identify the news point. What will be relevant for your readers? Keep those portions intact. And the rest? Hail to thee, O Delete Button!

NO RESERVATIONS FOR TECHTARDS
You have to know QuarkXpress inside out. Not only should you know the shortcuts, which will be of immense help, but you also have to be up-to-date on the different tricks and cheats of this ubiquitous software. Most of the work a sub does involves the computer; no matter where you stand on the issue of “this wretched life dominated by machines”, you have to absolutely dote on your computer.

Learning the correct and intelligent use of the internet is a must (keep in mind, though, that websites that come with the prefix “wiki” are not completely reliable). The internet can be a saviour at times, but it can also trap you in a web of no-return.

In addition to knowing Quark inside out, a sound knowledge of Photoshop will also come in handy. The designers will work on the layout but it is the sub who approves the final page design. Believe me, a sub who has drunk the cocktail of news sense, alertness, precision, and aesthetics is a rare expert of the highest quality. Newspaper editors are perennially on the lookout for such subs.

LOCK, STOCK, AND SIX SMOKING BARRELS

• The much-famed Carl Bernstein once said, “The pressure to compete, the fear somebody else will make the splash first, creates a frenzied environment in which a blizzard of information is presented and serious questions may not be raised.” If you read between the lines, it becomes clear that the ability to work fast and with the utmost possible precision is much-sought-after. This ability comes with confidence, and confidence comes with practice.

• In any creative field, hierarchies are more or less flat. There’s no wondering, “Am I the right person to say this?” If you spot a mistake on your senior’s part, you should point it out. If there’s scope for improvement, do make the suggestion. If you think a news item is worthy of mention, do recommend it.

• Your primary responsibilities may be editing and rewriting, but make time for writing, too. In addition to earning you a byline, it’ll also help you improve your editing skills. Start a blog and write comment pieces on any topic under the sun. If you have a story idea, approach the news editor or the features editor for a discussion and if the articles you submit are good, they’ll be published. A sub who can write is like a pilot who can also work as a makeshift steward.

• In the office, try to be cordial with everyone. Right from the boss to the attendant. Not for the pleasure of being altruistic, but for those extra cups of coffee, those instant inset stories that you so-desperately need to fill up some awkward space on your page, or for that helping hand on those dark days when your work is too much to handle alone. Diplomacy is the key in this business and there’s hardly any lock this key doesn’t open. Even the door of the grumpy deputy editor!

• A questioning nature is very important if you want to be a good sub. Good subs know there is no such thing as a stupid question. They question everything. Subs know that if they have doubts, so will the reader.

• “Attitude” — be it deserved or undeserved — is totally undesirable. You might have to hear words that aren’t enlisted in any dictionary and face situations which you never dreamt you’d be in. You might have to face a severe tongue-lashing for a not-so-severe mistake. But that’s the nature of this business and those are the professional hazards. To borrow a certain man’s words, you must “suck it up”!

A PERSONAL POST-SCRIPT
I don’t know if I have been able to market the job of a sub well, but I have tried to ensure that my friends don’t remain ignorant of the role of the unavoidable alter-ego of the “world’s best profession”.

All said and done, to enjoy the work of a sub-editor one must possess one of the deadly sins in abundance: Pride. The pride that comes from making things better, being relied upon, and feeling at home in a madhouse.

I must also mention the huge advantage of possessing a Press card: a single flash of this card can help you in unthinkable ways. So, for all those who are romantic enough to have allowed the bug of journalism to lay eggs inside their cerebrum but are too realistic to find solace in pursuing Advani’s chariot or keeping a check on whom Kalmadi is drinking tea with, the news desk beckons.

A PROFESSIONAL POST-SCRIPT
To once again borrow the words of that certain man, a good sub is worth his or her weight in gold. And, to add my own, good subs are as endangered as the wild ass of Kutch (hope you understand why I chose this particular animal for the comparison). Nevertheless, supply of fresh blood is a necessity and all donors will be duly rewarded. Certainly in kind, if not in cash!

Also read:

• What it means to be a newspaper sub-2

• Why subs are the lifeblood of a news organisation

• 10 quotations from writers and editors on the importance of editing (or revision)

• FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES: What We Talk About When We Talk About Editing 

• Cartoons courtesy: CartoonBank, CartoonStock, and Hearst Newspapers

Top 10 reasons why EDITING is cool

(10) It's like solving a puzzle.

(9)  You find a whole world of other people who go crazy over the "10 items or less" sign in the grocery store. (Or, as one new editor put it, "I can constructively satisfy my obsessive-compulsive anal-retentive
tendencies and get paid for it.")

(8)  Your job changes constantly; you're never bored.

(7)  You become a more interesting person. You can talk about Arafat, Albright, Agassi or Aguilera and sound like you know what you're talking about — because you do.

(6)  You have responsibility and power. You decide how readers will perceive the news, how they'll perceive the world.

(5)  Catching a dumb mistake before readers see it is a rush. Helping someone make a story better is the best drug there is.(Or, as one person wrote, "It's as close as an English major can come to being a doctor, or God.")

(4) Newspapers never ask writers to edit, but they love it if editors write.

(3)  You could be the world's best quiz show contestant because you're a dictionary of useless information.

(2)  You can move anywhere and find a job.

(1)  You never have to wear decent clothes.

• Compiled by Jane Harrigan, University of New Hampshire (Courtesy The American Copy Editors' Society)

• Also read: Why subs, or copy editors, are the lifeblood of a news organisation.

Why subs, or copy editors, are the lifeblood of a news organisation

Few readers, perhaps, know of the existence of subs, who play a crucial role in newspaper production. It is the sub-editor, now also known as the copy editor (an American term), who has read every word of every news report on the pages he or she has worked on. It is the sub who has, more or less, decided what the pages should look like. It is the sub who has, more or less, chosen the pictures on the page and written all the headlines, standfirsts, and captions. So when there are typos and other errors on the page it is probably because the sub has fallen asleep on the job and there is no second line of defence.

No second line of defence unlike in the olden days when there were teams of proofreaders to go through every galley proof and every page to catch the slip-ups.

I began my career in the olden days — June 1981, to be exact — as a trainee sub with Mid Day in Mumbai. I loved what I did then at the News Desk, and I continued to love what I did (and doing what I loved) for the next 20 years and more before turning to teaching (my life now is not only full but fulfilling).

Not many young people want to be subs now, though. That is one reason why good subs are rare.

And because they are rare, good subs are worth their weight in gold, which is why I tell all my journalism students to think seriously about desk jobs because newspapers all over the country are in dire need of subs...

• who have traditional subbing skills
• are excellent at spelling and grammar
• are good at rewrites and converting to house style
• are capable of coming up with great headlines, standfirsts, and captions
• are generally computer-literate but experts at layout using QuarkXpress (or equivalent page-making software), with management skills and the expertise to oversee the entire production process from raw copy to final pages.

MERRILL PERLMAN

Those are the basic skills of a good sub. But that's not all you need to be a good sub. Let Merrill Perlman, former director of Copy Desks at The New York Times, explain in detail what copy editors do. In a "Talk to the Times" column, she was asked this question by a reader, Bill Fischer:

Does your job and that of the other desk copy editors entail substantive editing and rewrite or is it mostly a matter of cleaning up style, grammar, etc.?

Here is Perlman's illuminating response:

Thanks for walking into our trap, Bill, and allowing me to explain what our copy editors do.

Copy editors are the final gatekeepers before an article reaches you, the reader. To start with, they want to be sure that the spelling and grammar are correct, following our stylebook, of course. But they also want to be sure that they, and thus you the reader, aren't left with a sense that they've come into the middle of a movie, or that they don't understand how something works, or that they're wondering what comes next or what this development means for them, er, you.

They have great instincts for sniffing out suspicious or incorrect facts or things that just don't make sense in context.

They are also our final line of protection against libel, unfairness and imbalance in an article. If they stumble over anything, they're going to work with the writer or the assigning editor (we call them backfield editors) to make adjustments so you don't stumble. That often involves intensive substantive work on an article.

In addition, copy editors write the headlines, captions and other display elements for the articles, edit the article for the space available to it (that usually means trims, for the printed paper) and read the proofs of the printed pages in case something slipped by.

All of this, I might add, is done under crushing deadlines. For breaking news, a copy editor may have less than an hour to read 1,000 words and do everything the article needs. (It can be even less!) We like to get longer articles farther ahead of time, when we can spend a few hours or even a day to be sure it's perfect, but our goal is to get the information TO you, not keep it FROM you, so speed is of the essence.

We've got more than 150 copy editors here — in fact, it's the largest newsroom department — on 14 different copy desks, just about one desk for every section of the news report.

Now you know why subs, or copy editors, are the lifeblood of a newspaper.

(That last paragraph about the NYT's 150 copy editors may draw gasps of disbelief from subs at Indian newspapers, which are known not to employ more than a handful of subs in each shift.)

Merrill Perlman addresses many other important issues related to the operations of the News Desk. Read the Q&A in its entirety here. Study especially the questions and responses given in the two items headlined "Those Pesky Possessives" and "The Comma Before the And". Learning can be so much fun when the teacher has such a great sense of humour.

• Check the spelling, grammar, punctuation, and facts. Then the sub-editor's real work starts, says Andy Bodle on The Guardian's "Mind Your Language" blog. Read his engaging and entertaining post here: "Isn't there a computer program for that?"

• ALSO READ: What happens when subs fall asleep on the job.

When a writer spews venom at subs

GILES COREN

A majority of writers are philosophical about the changes subs make in their copy, but some writers go ballistic when that happens, and Giles Coren, the restaurant critic of The Times, falls in that category.

Read the letter he sent to the Times subs — he was furious because the indefinite article 'a' was excised from the last sentence of his article. Be warned: The email is awash with four-letter words and is not for the faint-hearted.

Here's a "clean" excerpt, one of the few paragraphs not littered with obscenities:

It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine. No exaggeration. i've got a review to write this morning and i really don't feel like doing it, for fear that some nuance is going to be removed from the final line, the pay-off, and i'm going to have another weekend ruined for me.

When I was a journalist, I was always a Desk-man (and proud of it) — never have I had an encounter with anyone as severe on subs as Giles Coren. I have to say, though, that while I don't condone his foul-mouthedness and while I hold no brief for his verbosity in that letter, my sympathies are with him. I would not have deleted that 'a'.

This was not the first time Coren was taking on the Times subs. He had lashed out at them in 2002 for changing "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" to "...jumps over a lazy dog".

Another fairly "clean" excerpt from that email:

never ever ask me to write something for you. and don't pay me. i'd rather take 400 quid for assassinating a crack whore's only child in a revenge killing for a busted drug deal — my integrity would be less compromised.

LAURA BARTON

Laura Barton gives us the writers' viewpoint on the Coren controversy in her column in The Guardian. An excerpt:

There is, it must be said, something of a long-standing tension between writers and subeditors. We writers are rather protective of our words, prone to filing late and flouncing about and are altogether a tad precious. In short, subeditors view us as the Little Lord Fauntleroys of the office, and we in turn view them as our evil nemeses, hellbent on our undoing.

So while half of Fleet Street undoubtedly thought Coren a proper wazzock for his outpouring this week, there were at least some of us who sympathised somewhat. Most of us, at one point or another, have mentally drafted what we shall henceforth refer to as a "Corenian" letter, but never quite found the chutzpah required to actually send it.

DAVID MARSH

And, to get an insight into a sub's emotions when faced with a tirade of Corenian proportions, read the response of The Guardian's David Marsh: "Excoriating the coruscating Coren". Here's the intro:

If only Giles Coren had given his email to a good subeditor before sending it, he might have got his point across effectively without revealing himself to be arrogant, petulant, pompous and, frankly, the last person you'd want to be stuck in a restaurant with.

And then Marsh takes on his colleague Laura Barton for the piece in which she defended Coren:

Even those we regard as friends can damn with (very) faint praise. Lauding Coren because "you've taken one for the [writing] team," one of my colleagues describes in today's Guardian how she sees a sub's job: "A subeditor sets [an article] out on the page, cuts the words to fit, checks for spelling and grammatical errors, wanton cursing and factual inaccuracies." Perhaps she didn't have space to mention the coruscating headline-writing skills, visual flair, compendious knowledge and ability to turn sows' ears into silk purses on a daily basis that makes the subeditors who put together the very section that she writes for one of the most brilliant journalistic teams in the business.

All good subs will be able to relate to this accurate description of what a sub brings to the table.

And the final reaction, this time from the Sunday Times sub-editors.

An excerpt:

There was a sharp intake of breath when your e-mail hit the inbox of subs throughout the industry this week — that was after we'd stopped laughing. Not that we didn't think you had a point. Yes, tinkering with copy just for the sake of it and without consultation is wrong. It is disrespectful and arrogant. And we can see why you'd be furious at the loss even of an indefinite article.

There is nothing more irritating than a sub-editor who thinks they know better than a writer, particularly one who cares deeply about his work. But did you really have to be so rude?

Read the measured response in its entirety here: "Sunday Times subeditors reply to Giles Coren".

Sloppy subbing/house style

1. DNA (Bangalore), August 26

• Page 12: Pullout quote in first editorial

Vedanta has got its just desserts, but we need greater transparency in rules

That should be "just deserts": (From Dictionary.com) A deserved punishment or reward, as in He got his just deserts when Mary jilted him. This idiom employs desert in the sense of "what one deserves," a usage dating from the 1300s but obsolete except in this expression.

(We all know what "dessert" means.)

• Page 17: Headline

Mail on Flintoff auction raises a storm

That should be "email" or "e-mail", depending on house style. Why do so many of us, including journalists who should know better, write (or say) mail when it should be email?

In the news report below that headline, we read "e-mails" in some paragraphs and "mails" in other paragraphs. It's so confusing for readers.

2. The Times of India (Bangalore), August 26

• Page 1: Headline

INDIA SETS UP TITLE CLASH WITH SL

Here India is apparently a singular noun. Now go to the fourth paragraph of the match report on Page 23:

Now India have a chance to gloss over their weak links and get their hands on the trophy if they can contrive to run through the Lankans next.

Here India becomes a plural noun. So what is the house style?

Most newspapers allow collective nouns such as the cricket or football teams to be treated as plural subjects to make for ease of reading. For example: India have reached the final. To my knowledge, The Hindu is the only mainstream Indian newspaper that persists in treating, say, cricket or football teams as a singular subject. That is the newspaper's house style. But for The Times to treat India as singular and plural on different pages in the same issue is perhaps an indication that house style is no longer as sacrosanct as it used to be.

3. Open, August 20

• Page 41: Fifth paragraph

Before the channel began operating, a former bureau chief says, there was an unofficial list of dos and don’ts for reporters to follow. He recalls an unstated rule: “‘We will not do byte reporting’ …aisa hi kuch thha  (it was something like that).” The place became a haven for journalists, but it struggled to maintain its ideals. Slowly, quietly, the bureau head believes, the rules disappeared.

Byte? Here's a dictionary definition of byte: "adjacent bits, usually eight, processed by a computer as a unit". So clearly it is a computer term.

Now here's the definition of sound bite: "a brief, striking remark or statement excerpted from an audiotape or videotape for insertion in a broadcast news story".

So Open should have used "bite reporting" in that sentence, not "byte reporting".

In Mint Lounge on May 15, a caption on Page 15 read:

Byte-hungry: Indian news channels were criticized for the way they covered the 26/11 terror attacks

But Open and Mint are not the only culprits. For some reason, universally, we will see a reference to "byte" when what is meant is "bite" or "sound bite". Even television journalists are not immune to this disease. A few months ago I sent an email to Rajdeep Sardesai about this and he replied, "It should be sound bite. But you are right, several of us, myself included, use sound byte. Am not sure why."