ACES Numbers and a Few Words from Jack Welch

Got back late last night and am having to re-enter the stream of life -- being 56, of course, I am genetically unable to multitask -- or is it simply not particularly interested in doing so? The American Copy Editors Society convention final total was 259 registrations. In Denver last year it was just over 300; I don't recall the exact figure from Denver, but using what I think it was, that means ACES 2009 -- lousy economy, horrible time for newspapers, etc. , and in a comparable location with no other major cities nearby -- had 85 percent of last year's attendance.

And it's certainly loyal, motivated, concerned workers such as these, who are trying to not only better their current skills but learn new ones for SEO, audio, video, that the industry needs less of, because all they really are is "mechanical" workers. Can someone who does newsroom job analyses and provides these figures on "how many" people a newsroom should have proportionately in each category find out what copy editors really do and reassign them to the "working journalist" category?

Anyhow, got to run, but I did want to draw attention to comments by Jack Welch on Friday in my paper. He did put another stake into the Boston Globe, but the main thing is his comments on local TV news: "'They're really hurting. Local advertising has gone away.' Generally, local TV is 'in worse shape than newspapers,'" Welch said.

Well, you won't see that on the 10 o'clock news, because TV news does not operate under the belief that public self-flagellation proves your objectivity. And TV can be dying but still keep the ratings up and doesn't have an ABC Fas-Fax to fixate on. (Note to newspaper business: Just stop reporting the damn thing. Yes, some online critics will accuse you of being self-serving. Who cares? How many people are going to go out of their way, even online, to read a story about the ABC Fas-Fax? Don't lie; but newspapers never have reported everything they know.)

But maybe some newspapers would like to call TV stations and ask their general managers to discuss the revenue picture, or call some news directors and ask them about staffing levels, number of stories covered, whether their annual conferences are disrupted, etc.? About whether they are merging back-office work? About how successful their Web presences have been both in terms of views and economics? TV is still the most-trusted source of news for most Americans. Partly that is because TV just tells its viewers, "Trust us." It doesn't run stories saying, "We're going down and so you should trust us less."

ACES Post Time

Blogging at the ACES conference can be found here from my colleagues Jim Thomsen, Gerri Berendzen, Neil Holdway, Daniel Hunt and others.

A followup to Doug Fisher from yesterday's meeting: You said that the economic value of what we do is miminal, as in no one would pay much for "news" because it is so transitory. That what we sold was the package. My question is, does that apply just to "breaking news"? If one is talking about, oh, Sue Shellenbarger's columns on balancing work and family in the WSJ, things one might clip, would that be of a higher economic value? What sort of editorial content is worth more money than just stuff you might find on A1 or B1? Hope you can reply.

Doug Ward, Sara Hendricks and Kathy Schenck moderated a session this morning based on comments in the opening session, about what can raise the profile of copy editors and what can raise the value of ACES. One thing that keeps coming up is that ACES, which was founded to raise the profile of newspaper copy editors as a result of the early 1990s American Society of Newspaper Editors study, is still seen by many who come for the first time as being too much of a newspaper organization. Yet at the same time, the number of potential newspaper employees who have never heard of ACES is still huge.

ACES would seem to have a bright future as a broad-based organization for copy editors whether they are in newspapers, books, magazines, PR departments, organizational Web sites, online journalism, or whatever. On the other hand, given the efficiency with which the scythe reaps its harvest in newsrooms and what it cuts down first, does ACES still have its major work to do as a news-organization advocacy group based around newspapers and news magazines? Because time, resources and energy are limited.