Why Copy Editing Matters

CLEARING THE RECORD
The previous post on "That's the Press, Baby," contained the following errors until they were caught by the blogger, who is a copy editor but did not edit his own copy or have anyone else do so.


The sentence "Earlier, I missed this post by a guest contributor to Newsosaur, and you may have to." should have read "you may have too." The writer did not mean to state that you should not read the post.

The phrase "probably creating new products, whether print or online, that will benefit the company as a hole" should have read "as a whole." The writer did not mean to state that the company was a cesspool.

The writer acknowledges the immediately correctable nature of the Internet, but notes that the damage has already been done to anyone who had already read the post or received it by RSS feed or similar system, who now thinks the writer is an illiterate idiot whose viewpoints may be further discounted.

The writer, humbled, wonders why more people who are pondering the future of the newspaper business and seeing copy editing as simply a cost center to be eliminated just don't seem to get this.