Sub-editors:
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009We used to call the Sun and the Mirror “subs’ papers”. But I notice that former Mirror editor Roy Greenslade has questioned in The Guardian media pages whether we need sub-editors today.
I have a vested interest. I spent a decade on various subs’ desks before I had the op and became an editor. Shortly before I joined The Times Business News, the paper had decided it had such wonderful writers that it could manage without subs.
Guess what? Within a week, frantic phone calls were being made. “Do you know any good freelance subs?”
A basic lesson. Most journalists are incapable of writing to length and to deadline. Ask them to cut copy by 50 words and you’d think you had asked them to chew off their foot.
They also make mistakes. Everyone does. Show me a journo who writes under tight time pressures and never makes a mistake, and I’ll show you a liar.
This makes the sub’s job sound like a health and safety inspector. Not so. It’s true that for some magazines, subbing is merely fact-checking. But done well, it’s an immensely creative process, taking dull copy and making it sparkle.
Doing that so writers don’t notice is an even more creative process. I love it when a reporter says: “My piece came out really well, didn’t it?” and you’ve made substantial changes.
Subbing is no job if you want writers to love you, though. I still remember that golden moment on The Sun when a reporter stormed over to the subs’ desk to complain.
“Someone changed all my copy round!” he blustered.
It went very quiet. We all looked at each other.
Then one sub pushed back his chair and said: “Yeah, I done it. What’s the matter?”
“Well, it’s got my byline on it but it isn’t my story. The intro’s been changed, there’s another story in there, new quotes and the order’s all different!”
“Listen, sunshine,” he was told. “You’ve got the glory, but we’ve got the power.
“Now piss off.”
You could hear the cheers in the Printer’s Devil in Fetter Lane (which, I noticed, has just closed forever).
But maybe, like the pub, that’s yesterday. Can the brave new online world dismiss the sub-editing role as something for a media history lesson? Readers’ views welcome.