What are the Creative Duties of Sub Editor of a Newspaper?

The sub-editor’s creative work, and its success, depends on the liveliness of his own mind and his knowledge of typography. He is responsible for putting in ‘cross-heads’ (they are the headings-usually in heavier type-that appear at intervals in the story), he writes the headlines, and he decides on the style of type to be used for them, as well as for the rest of the story.

As the sub reads through the copy, he puts in necessary cross- heads and indicates to the linotype operator the various sizes and founts of type to be used. Having done that, the sub will get to work on one of the most difficult tasks of all-that of thinking out a head­line (or ‘head’).

Heads are set up in a number of sizes and styles of type, according to the degree of prominence the story is to have, and the sub has to remember that the larger the size of type, the smaller the number of letters that can be put into the width of a column. Some words will fit into a column width better than others, no matter what the size of the typewriter.

A sub-editor is more than a reporter who has been given an inside job and more or less regular working hours; he is in every sense a specialist.

He is not a man who re-writes copy merely to justify his existence (at least, he should not be) ; he must have a knowledge of type and type sizes, he must have had a sufficient experience of re­porting to appreciate its difficulties and its pitfalls; and he must be constantly on his guard against libels, not only in the body of a story but also in the heading and cross-heads he himself writes. Above all he must have the right mentality for the job.

There are some reporters who, used to being out and about, dislike being tied to a desk and miss the fascination of personal contact with people and the individuality that a reporter cannot help but develop. On the other hand, there are those who prefer the regular hours and the comfort of working inside an office, and can settle down to the methodical routine.

The ultimate thing a competent newspaper sub-editor accom­plishes is to make the news more meaningful for its readers. All the sub-editor’s efforts are aimed at that target in a general way.

Polishing the language, writing the headlines, selecting and fitting the news into available space, arraying it in the paper-at all these levels the sub-editor’s chief concern is to present as much as possible of news in a form as significant and interesting as possible in which it can be read and understood by the greatest possible number of readers.

Readable Writing:

Possibly the largest single ingredient in meaningful writing is readable writing. No effort is made here to distinguish between the two. The term “readability” usually is used to describe the stylistic factors in writing which make it easier to read. (Readable writing, as it is usually defined, is not necessarily meaningful to a particular individual, however.)

Readability has been given a good deal of attention in the news services and newsrooms in recent years. It has almost become a cult. However, concern with readability in the newspaper profession is perhaps only a little old. Using simple words and simple sentences has been the old-time editorial injunction to the reporter, as what they are writing is meant for the people.

The recent interest in readability has done no injustice to that idea. When the work of readability experts has been reduced to its essentials, the advice is : “Use simple words and simple sentences and remember you are writing for the people”.

Students of readability have however performed an important service in increasing the attention newsmen pay to these doctrines. And they have provided a means of testing writing to establish, roughly, at least, how closely a given writer is adhering to this exce­llent advice.

Reading for Meaning:

In dealing with the problem of meaning, the copy editor must work at two significant levels. He asks himself, as he reads, (i) did the reporter himself understand clearly what he was writing about? And (ii) did he tell the story in such a way as to make his meaning apparent to his readers?

It is clear that reporters incapable of understanding the mater­ials with which they work cannot survive long as reporters. Yet, one of the most difficult parts of the sub-editor’s job is that he must be unflaggingly alert for indication of a want of understanding on the reporter’s part. This is not to imply that newspaper reporters as & lot are short of brains. But conditions under which they work are demanding.

These include the pressure of time, the increasing complexity of the facts they deals with, and the fact they must deal with a wide range of specialized subject matters-the day of thorough­going specialization in the newsrooms is not yet arrived.

So the sub-editor must read with skepticism; the more complex the story, the more intense the skepticism. He must seek out internal evidence of the reporter’s lack of understanding, if any, The sub­editor did not witness the fire, he did not study the tax report, he did not attend the council meeting, so he cannot be expected to know for certain ^that the reporter misunderstood. But he can ferret out signs of inconsistency between parts of the story signs in the reporter’s statements of fact that betray confusion and signs that the speaker’s statements do not square with his past statements or known attitudes.

Coordination with Reporters:

These are only clues, however, not evidence. Finding such clues, the sub-editor’s next duty is to discuss the story with the reporter. If necessary, such a conference might lead to the reporter’s discussing the story with the news source. At any rate, the sub-editor clearly is not in a position to convert his doubts directly into changes in the copy. The confusions must be pains­takingly cleared up at the source.

This sort of copy reading is often done at other levels than the Tim. The city sub editor is the first to subject a story to scrutiny of this kind. The slot may also be the backstop. But the fact that others are concerned with the question of the reporter’s understand­ing does not by any means absolve the copy sub-editor. His role is simply magnified by the fact that he is the last protector of the full meaning of the story; he cannot depend on others to catch confusions of detail, for instance, because the others are not concerned with -detail but rather with the broad outlines of the story.

What is a meaningful story

Perhaps the reporter’s original misunderstanding of the news lie tells is a smaller part of the problem of meaning than how he tells it. The first essential of a meaningful story is the story’s meaning- fullness to the writer.

He cannot tell it clearly if he does not under­stand it clearly. But his understanding is no guarantee that he will convey his understanding to his reader. This, then, he is the second Bevel at which the sub-editor scrutinizes the story in terms of meaning.

The best evidence the sub-editor has that the story will not be clear to the reader is whether he the sub-editor grasps the full meaning of the story instantly.