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    Sub standard

    The increasingly mad Roy Greenslade calls for writers to be allowed to sub their own work

    I like the comments from "janetteO" and "murraw" (the latter being the Guardian's deputy chief sub).

    #2
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    I've contributed anonymously, as have some of my mates.

    Not for the first time, Roy's being a useful idiot for short-termist cost-cutting managements.

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      #3
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      How many subs does the Grauniad have? Two hundred or so?

      Greenslade must be out of his tiny mind if he wants to trust hacks with subbing their own work. Not only would it result in a vast increase in the number of inaccuracies in the paper, but it would also inevitably end up costing christ knows how much money in libel damages and legal costs.

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        #4
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        The key flaw in what he's saying is that he's ignoring the importance of journalism as a collaborative process. This is a profession full of idiosyncratic and contrasting opinions - you need to run a few pairs of eyes over something to get a decent, balanced assessment of its value.

        This is even more the case in the new media environment, because now that we're not the 'gateway' producers of content the way we once were with print-only - given the almost infinite number of websites there are - conventional media need to do more to distinguish themselves, not less. Greenslade's prescribing a world in which the opposite will happen, where multi-skilling (a good thing in theory) becomes mediocrity (a bad thing in practice).

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          #5
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          Heh, thought this was going to be about the French & British submarines that collided in the Atlantic.

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            #6
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            The French submarine and "another vessel", the identity of which cannot be confirmed for national security reasons, don't you mean?

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              #7
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              What was that song from the 80s about "one of our submarines"? Good one...

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                #8
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                David Montgomery says "There shouldn't be any sub-editors"...

                So Greenslade and Rommel agree on non-partition issues at least?

                Following Venne's question, can I turn it back on you? How many subs see your music reviews in SBP, or E10's Martin Ling article in WSC? Genuine question, I have no axe to grind.

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                  #9
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                  Dunc, I can't possibly reveal the secrets of how the inner WSC sanctum works. But yer average piece in a sports section would probably have been gone over by around five people. It doesn't always get this sort of attention - if it's a late breaking news story or a match report coming in bang on deadline - and it might seem bureacratic but it's a process that demonstrably works, with refinement/improvement likely at each stage.

                  Anyway, such is the small London media village that I actually found myself sharing a drink with Greenslade this evening (introducing myself as an 'embittered sub'), after he spoke at this event:
                  http://www.nujleft.org/2009/01/public-meeting-on-media-ownership/
                  He's got some interesting ideas on wider ownership issues, and where we and he agree is that the current private media business model is royally fucked. I just don't think he knows what side he's on, and is liable to pronounce pompously on issues he doesn't know as much about as he thinks he does, like how subbing works in the modern integrated newsroom.

                  Montgomery, on the other hand, is a worthless, grasping incompetent.

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                    #10
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                    Thanks E10. I think you (or VS, or one of your fellow subs) have quoted that figure before. I was really trying to get at a comparable figure for a smaller paper or specialist mag, even if you don't want to reveal any commercial confidences.

                    The thing is, four or five people scanning/ proof-reading/ stylistically analysing Sam Wollaston, Zoe Williams or the football results DOES look bureaucratic to this layman. I mean, surely they're puff and/or trivia, needing a spell-check and a second opinion at most?

                    Montgomery is undoubtedly an arse (his nickname in Berlin is 'the locust', maybe Altermann Barnes can explain the insult), but I assumed he personally and the papers he has run recently have been fairly successful?

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                      #11
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                      Following Venne's question, can I turn it back on you? How many subs see your music reviews in SBP, or E10's Martin Ling article in WSC? Genuine question, I have no axe to grind.

                      I write an article. It gets read by the editor of the features section. She then sends it over to the production department. A sub-editor has his/her wicked way with it. Another sub-editor then plonks it on the page, and has a read of it themselves. It gets printed out. A third sub reads it.

                      It then gets sent back over to the features editor, who casts her eye over it for a second time. She makes whatever corrections or changes she thinks are necessary. A sub (possibly one of the people who had read it before, possibly not) keys in those changes.

                      The modified page then gets handed to me, because I happen to be the guy who checks all pages at the very last moment before they get sent to the printers. I cast my eye over it -- not looking at my own article in particular, but at the whole page, to make sure that the basic things are correct, like the date at the top being the right one, the headlines all being spelled correctly, no last lines of an article accidentally dropping off the edge of the page due to someone misjudging the space available, etc.

                      So, in any given week, at least four other people (sometimes five) take a look at an article penned by me before it hurtles down the air-vent and into the public domain.

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                        #12
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                        vennegoor strokes wrote:
                        I write an article. It gets read by the editor of the features section
                        The features editor reads it, I'd have said. [/non-specialist pisstake]

                        You may vaguely remember kindly ensuring that my letter to your paper a few years ago was eventually included. As a secondary point within it, I chided your editor for subbing out references to Northern Ireland.

                        S/he changed it to the North, of course. Ha ha.

                        Comment


                          #13
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                          The features editor reads it, I'd have said. [/non-specialist pisstake]

                          The actual features editor's currently on maternity leave.

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                            #14
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                            It may seem bureacratic in isolation, Dunc, but that's only because describing the life of a story like that, in isolation, makes it look like each of the people in the food chain don't have to do anything else. If you got rid of subs then those that remain wouldn't have much time to commission, plan ahead, or actually write stuff.

                            I'm not convinced by Montgomery's 'success'. It really can't be stressed enough how, in the current media climate, those who have been running big media companies have been exposed as visionless or useless. This really is not a well-run industry at the moment.

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                              #15
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                              four or five people scanning/ proof-reading/ stylistically analysing Sam Wollaston, Zoe Williams or the football results DOES look bureaucratic to this layman.

                              It really, really isn't. Even leaving aside the mistakes committed by common-or-garden reporters (some of whom are very good, and some of whom are shit), you would be amazed at the number of big-name columnists who literally cannot spell, or who make breathtakingly appalling errors such as basing their entire intro around the fact that Brian Cowen became a TD as recently as 1994 (actually 1984).

                              Almost all subs will catch the mis-spellings, but not all will spot the factual errors, because nobody can be an expert in everything. The more people that read a piece prior to publication, the better and stronger the paper will be.

                              And even a good sub would require about two uninterrupted days to render someone like Sam Wollaston readable (allowing about 3% of the original copy onto the page). That's time we don't have, to put it mildly.

                              Comment


                                #16
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                                E10 Rifle wrote:
                                It may seem bureaucratic in isolation, Dunc, but that's only because describing the life of a story like that, in isolation, makes it look like each of the people in the food chain don't have to do anything else
                                I wasn't suggesting that, I realise each cog in the wheel has many and varied tasks. And I've worked for a genuinely bureaucratic, hugely over-manned quango (English Heritage). I'm just a bit puzzled that the process remains as detailed as you both describe, while at the same time no-one subbing Sam or Zoe picks up either the clumsy writing style, or even the author's failure to actually watch many of the programs he's reviewing.

                                Venne- point taken about the impossibility of a single editor being expert in factual material across many disciplines. But for the fluffier stuff, without much factual content, is that really a problem?

                                Comment


                                  #17
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                                  It should also be stressed that the sort of process me and VS are describing probably comes from the better-resourced end of the spectrum. Others are not so lucky. For example a local paper and its associated website is unlikely to have that type of scrutiny any longer. And boy does it show.

                                  There's a bigger history-repeating-itself flaw going on with Greenslade's analysis too. Back in the aftermath of Wapping, with the print unions smashed, there was a crowing view among some journalists that 'we are the masters now', with the stroppy fuckers on hot metal out of the way. It wasn't true of course. And these latest attempts to cut out another layer of the production process aren't any likelier to empower those that remain.

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                                    #18
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                                    What you're describing with those two writers, Dunc, are what in your opinion are flaws of editorial judgment - ie in commissioning them in the first place - and they would remain so were there only one person looking at their work or five.

                                    I've got no idea, by the way, what their copy looks like when it first comes in.

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                                      #19
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                                      Montgomery is undoubtedly an arse (his nickname in Berlin is 'the locust', maybe Altermann Barnes can explain the insult), but I assumed he personally and the papers he has run recently have been fairly successful?
                                      Not exactly. In his tenure at the Mirror, besides the rampant cost-cutting and sackings of great journos like Paul Foot, Montgomery presided over a disastrous purchase of the Indy, falling behind the Mail in circulation, and the heavy use of "bulk distribution" and even simple fraud to boost readership numbers.

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                                        #20
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                                        But for the fluffier stuff, without much factual content, is that really a problem?

                                        We're a financial paper, and we don't really do that much fluffy stuff. The vast majority of our coverage is either on politics or the stock markets. Both need to be looked over very carefully indeed.

                                        Our last editor was forced out because he was covering a certain telecommunications mogul's tax affairs in extremely heavy depth, and a schoolboy error (the wrong date of a meeting) was committed in an article, with damages consequently having to be paid. These things happen to all papers. They would happen a hell of a lot more often without sub-editors cleaning up other people's mistakes.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
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                                          I'd hazard a calculated guess that Zoe Williams is a hell of a lot easier to sub than Sam Wollaston. It's just that -- in my opinion -- most of the things she writes are a bit silly.

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                                            #22
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                                            Actually, I shouldn't pick on ZW's 'lifestyle' comment pieces. I don't read that section of the paper too closely, she seems much like the others. And I enjoy her mum and toddler column, as per previous thread.

                                            There is a Wollaston room in my local public library. Don't panic, it's a nearby village.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
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                                              It really, really isn't. Even leaving aside the mistakes committed by common-or-garden reporters (some of whom are very good, and some of whom are shit), you would be amazed at the number of big-name columnists who literally cannot spell, or who make breathtakingly appalling errors such as basing their entire intro around the fact that Brian Cowen became a TD as recently as 1994 (actually 1984).
                                              Christ yes – I could never work out whether a lot of (quite respectable) writers, whose copy I worked on, were just too lazy to make any attempts at grammar or spelling (presumably assuming the subs would sort it out), or were genuinely incapable of it.

                                              As a freelance sub on a women's title, I may have once averted a minor consumer panic by questioning the accuracy of a product review of a 'microwave hairdryer'. Did I get any thanks? Course not.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
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                                                I'm thinking of applying as proofreader/sub for Word magazine. I'm not a journalist and yet I'm surprised at the few choice spelling mistakes to be found almost every issue.

                                                They need to get organasised.

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                                                  #25
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                                                  I always wanted to be a person who checked books for silly errors. I mean recently I have read a crime novel which was described on the front cover as 'grizzly' and no it wasn't a pun about bears, and one where the main character's name was spelled differently on the back cover than in the text. That's not to mention the number of typos/inconsistencies/errors that appear on the pages of practically every novel I read these days.

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