Goodbye copy desks, hello trouble?

Newspaper Research Journal, Spring 1998 by Russial, John

Is elimination of the copy desk leading to improvement in the editing process or a sacrifice of quality?

In the last two years, several newspapers have dismantled their copy desks wholesale or in part. The Wichita Eagle has gone the farthest; it has eliminated the copy desk as a distinct operation, moving the editors onto reporting teams.' The St. Paul Pioneer Press has shifted its copyeditors either to reporting teams or to a presentation hub.2 The Star Tribune in Minneapolis has moved most of its copyeditors onto topic teams.3 Other newspapers have folded copyediting into design operations, calling them, among other names, design or presentation desks.4 Buck Ryan has commented that newspapers might as well dismantle their copy desks, in part because the shift of back-shop work into newsrooms has made it nearly impossible for copyeditors to spend much time editing.5 Writing coach Don Fry argues that reporters should be able to edit their own copy.6 One could easily conclude that the traditional copy desk is under assault on several fronts.

Most organizational changes that affect the copy desk have been undertaken in an effort to improve the editing process - to break down walls between reporter and editor, editor and designer, or editor and editor. Editors' anecdotal reports in trade journals and interviews with copyeditors at several papers that have adopted team approaches point to successes. Copyeditors say that working on topic teams enriches their jobs by broadening them. They say this type of reorganization has provided a context for copyeditors to get involved in stories earlier in the editing process, reducing the need for oftencontentious last-minute changes. Moreover, they say, reporters and copyeditors who work side by side develop mutual respect and understanding. These are positive, many would say long-overdue, outcomes, but a question remains: Will such attempts to reorganize the process of copyediting erode the overall quality of copyediting?

It is too early to answer that question with any degree of certainty, but it is not too early to ask it. Organizational changes tend to make their way into the nation's newsrooms slowly at first, then snowball. Assessment tends to come much later. In the case of elimination of copy desks, it is important to ask questions earlier rather than later, because it is far easier to dismantle an institution such as the copy desk than it is to rebuild it.

Similarly, because so few papers have eliminated their copy desks, it is too early to empirically assess the impact of this potentially far-reaching change on job satisfaction and journalistic performance - two traditional concerns identified in the research literature on copyediting.7 It is not too early, though, to examine the idea of copy desk elimination analytically and through anecdotal information from the few papers that have done it. One can ask whether the assumptions underlying this experiment in newsroom organization are consistent with the nature of editing work in a daily newspaper newsroom.

The case for elimination of the copy desk is being argued in newsrooms and in trade journals, and the following are some of the sometimes contradictory points that have been made:

Eliminating the copy desk will not eliminate copyediting. Newspapers might as well eliminate copyeditors because copyeditors no longer have time to edit.

Pagination has spelled the end of copyediting as we know it. Newspapers don't need copyeditors because reporters should be able to provide clean copy.

Copyeditors should be shifted to (take your pick) design desks, originating desks or topic teams, because that's where they belong.

Questioning the value of copy desks is sometimes part of a broader criticism of newsroom organization. Edward Miller of the Poynter Institute offers one such view. In an article published in Quill in 1992, Miller argues that the traditional division of newsroom labor is an organizational form more suited to a 19th century coal mine than a late 20th century newsroom.8 Miller's alternative is a newsroom organized around design, which he defines as "the integration of verbal and visual elements into a coherent whole." Design, he says, can be "the organizing principle around which rejuvenated organizations seek to explore new markets and audiences." Though he doesn't use the term, Miller is saying, in effect, that newsrooms are ripe for what business consultants call reengineering.

Miller doesn't directly target the copy desk, but it isn't much of a leap to assume that the copy desk is one station in the "rigidly structured, hierarchical, command and control style" assembly line operation that he finds inappropriate. Others have raised similar points. Saf Fahim, a New York City architect who was asked to design a newsroom of the future for the 1994 American Society of Newspaper Editors convention, was surprised "to discover that newsrooms still operate like Henry Ford-era assembly lines." Fahim said, "People are sitting in tribes [with] no sense of a team that works together. Most people no longer work on assembly lines but in groups that are oriented toward a quality product instead of a quantity product."9 Others, such as Buck Ryan, suggest that eliminating the copy desk as a specialized department will improve the editing process because it will improve coordination of the news gathering and production process and "let the story idea drive the organization of the newsroom."10 Managing editor Janet Weaver of the Wichita Eagle says the linear copy desk assembly-line structure is based "on technology that we had long since replaced."11 What they are saying, in effect, is that copyediting as it is currently organized and practiced adds little value to the news product. Is that conclusion justified?