An Evolving Model for Editing

Foreign news reporter Nora Boustany remembers writing a story about an archaeologist, Ricardo Eichmann, and a copy editor asking her if he was Adolf Eichmann's son. He was. Boustany is ever grateful that the copy editor prompted her to go back and find out.

Another task for copy editors, writing headlines, is also changing. Headline writing is an art. Write a good one and no one may notice. Write a bad one and everyone notices. Writing a good one is a lot harder than some readers -- or reporters -- understand. But the clever headline with a cultural reference or a sly pun is not as valued on the Internet, where it's important to be able to search for key words.

Funny man Gene Weingarten did a column playfully saying good riddance to copy editors; of course, it was filled with errors. Some readers think they can spot the loss of copy editors. Reader Robert Tiller of Silver Spring complained recently that a Weekend article referred to "principle" when "principal" was meant, and to "hocking wares" instead of "hawking wares." Weekend editor Tracy Grant said the copy editor was working on several sections at once. "At some point, we have to shrug and say, as much as we hate it, this stuff is going to happen because people are doing a lot more with a lot less."

Having fewer copy editors worries sports columnist Mike Wise: "The utter lack of people on the desk who yearn to fix our messes and make decent copy readable is, industrywide, appalling. The advent of writers' stories going directly to the Web site is even more frightening, even in blog form. Beyond the misspellings, you need that one or two good reads -- and that one good-taste editor -- to catch you from falling on your face. About the only thing we have to stake our reputations on in this industry is integrity, and when not enough people have your back on the desk to ensure that you get everything imaginable right and that your tone doesn't undermine your credibility, it really rips at that integrity."

Top Post editors decided there were too many editors changing copy, which can be tracked on computers; they said they found up to a dozen changes -- not all made by copy editors -- and felt the process as it existed was expensive and unnecessary. Now usually two editors -- an assigning editor and a copy editor -- read copy on the National, Business and Foreign desks.

My plea would be the same as that of reader Lindsay Thomas of Dayton, Ohio: "I appreciate that The Post has made some difficult decisions recently and probably has more to make in the future. . . . I hope copy-editing remains a priority for the paper."

Deborah Howell can be reached at 202-334-7582 or atombudsman@washpost.com. A longer version of this column appears on washingtonpost.com.