Editor, revised

I came to the online world via the night news copy desk. I truly loved parts of that job: editing the wires, writing heds that thousands of people would see, catching mistakes at the 11th hour. But I decided to leave to bolster my resume with online experience.

In some ways, I’m still a copy editor. When I post a story, I edit it (of course). When things are slow, I read the stories I haven’t seen. They’re live by that point, but I figure it’s better to catch the error later than never.

My job also involves news judgment, which I developed doing the wires and laying out local news pages.

I’ve often thought that my copy editing background is what helps me be especially effective in my position. But I’ve wondered whether this is common among online producers.

I found at least one parallel in this list via Mindy McAdams via her colleague. In it recent grad Nick Rosinia, now working for MLB.com, passes on pointers to editing students. I liked his opener:

The new job title is “editorial producer.” It means little else than the Internet is too cool to have “copyeditors,” but you might win a few points with a recruiter if you know it.

He goes on to address writing heds, cutlines and teasers, and the importance of being clean and quick. All things I confront daily, all things that a good copy editor should handle adeptly.

At the end of her post, McAdams writes, “It looks like there will always be jobs for good copy editors.”

I hope she’s right, but I might tweak that statement a little. It looks like there will always be need for good copy editing skills, because in online journalism you often are your own copy editor.

BTW, searching Journalismjobs.com for the keywords “copy editors” turned up 67 listings today, most at daily newspapers. If you’re willing to work in a small town and have little job security, there certainly are jobs for good copy editors right now.

I remember walking in my grad school commencement a couple years back. Like most fellow graduates, I was smiling. Unlike quite a few fellow graduates, I was smiling about the achievement AND the fact that I’d already lined up a job.

This week, my former adviser Daryl Moen noted in an email to his listserv of Missouri J School grads that he’s noticed more anxiety among graduating seniors/grad students and fewer of them heading into a full-time job right away. This shouldn’t be surprising if you’re following the industry news.

Fortunately, there are some good collections of advice floating around out there. And they’re not limited to how to get a job. If you’ve got a minute between writing cover letters and updating your resume, check these out.

• Journerdism: “Make organization and the elimination of clutter (especially information clutter) a life long process. Twitter is neat, but addicting and dangerous. We lost a lot of good men in the war to Twitter.”
• Innovation in College Media: “Look beyond what job you’ll be doing and take a look at the snapshot portrait that’s being developed right now about the profession.”
• Online Journalism Blog: “As you do your job, as you walk the streets, as you read the newspapers and browse the messageboards, keep your news sense about you: is something happening that is newsworthy?”
• JournalismJobs.com: Besides publishing tons of help-wanted ads, this site has some good career articles.
• My previous post, while a little tongue in cheek and not about getting a job, offers 15 observations I’ve gained in 24 months in the field. “Somewhere, somehow, there is a perfect nexus of efficiency and quality, and it takes more than two years to find it.”