Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Sub Mission

JLM

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 11:02:33 +1200

Hope I can post this here for Dundin people, but everyone knows there's a Save TVNZ7 meeting in the Colqhoun theatre 1st floor Dunedin Hospital at 6pm tonight, right? Do pass it on, I haven't seen it well advertised

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 13:02:41 +1200

As above, so below...
Nicely Hermetic editorial spread – from Sub to Super...

Strip mining...
Gerard Jones writes well about the whole saga of Cleveland's finest sons, Shuster & Siegel, in Men of Tomorrow – and Michael Chabon took a Pulitzer winning fictional look at it with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Adventures_of_Kavalier_%26_Clay| __The Amazing Adventures…

Kumara Republic

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 09:44:29 +1200

Petty and not really that important in the great scheme of things? Perhaps, but why should I take the book pages of a major daily newspaper seriously if they can’t get something that basic right.

And if mistakes get glossed over, what about blatant lies? With apologies to Mark Twain…

Lucy Stewart

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 07:57:41 +1200

Petty and not really that important in the great scheme of things? Perhaps, but why should I take the book pages of a major daily newspaper seriously if they can’t get something that basic right.

That's not petty. That's wrong-President-Roosevelt inaccurate (and they at least shared a *century*.) Imagine the…

Craig Ranapia

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 07:06:04 +1200

I think cheap-siding the subs is a case of being penny wise and pounds foolish. I won’t go into the tedious details, but back in the day an eagle-eyed sub (with plenty of institutional memory and local knowledge) saved me from a “trivial typing error” (i.e. sloppy attribution hard on…

Lilith __

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 23:24:09 +1200

That’s how we used to do it in the proofreaders’ room at The Press –

One of my sisters did that job for a while. There was one chap who used to often fall asleep, as it was his third job of the day.

linger

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 21:54:19 +1200

Isn't the Herald one big scheduled outrage?

DexterX

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 21:32:22 +1200

With fairfax outsourcing "sub editing" jobs to NZ – they will be wanting to rely on NZ's high speed broadband network – they haven't experienced the level of outage and power failure.

An outage schedule – is one even produced.or published?

Lilith __

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 20:08:40 +1200

You say that like it’s a bad thing.

I thought somebody might say that. ;-)

Tom Beard

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 17:51:35 +1200

Stop, stop, you people make me laugh so much it hurts.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Emma Hart

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 17:23:23 +1200

missing "r"

Pro brono?

Bart Janssen

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 17:07:02 +1200

pro bono work

missing "r"

Hebe

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 17:06:43 +1200

In the meantime I content myself with my pro bono work.
Stop, stop, you people make me laugh so much it hurts.Surely not you also Lilith?

Bart Janssen

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 17:05:57 +1200

an observation

But Hebe you are looking at the whole cost. If you partition the costs into separate budgets then you can cut costs in the sub editor room and hit your KPIs. that the costs have gone up for the corporation as a whole is not your fault.

Also…

Lilith __

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 16:45:49 +1200

"Piffle", Jackson? Willing to bet nobody’s used that word since Bertie’s cruel Aunt Agatha. ;-)

JacksonP

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 16:31:08 +1200

Stop, stop, you people make me laugh so much it hurts.

Oh piffle! News is best when it's hot off the press.

Lilith __

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:46:06 +1200

In the meantime I content myself with my pro bono work.

Stop, stop, you people make me laugh so much it hurts.

Russell Brown

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:42:16 +1200

From Stop Press, the next thing to fret about: the coming of the robot reporters.

Emma Hart

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:36:47 +1200

As when subbing for the Dom ?
Sorry don’t understand.

go ask Emma...

I have wanted a job subbing for the Dom for ages now, just so I could constantly make that joke. In the meantime I content myself with my pro bono work.

Hebe

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:20:27 +1200

I see. My home contains a former reporter and a former sub from an altogether more gentlemanly masthead than the Dom; it can still be a version of the Bogside when wires are crossed. Given my total miss of that entendre I shall retire to the cats thread.

Ian Dalziel

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:16:45 +1200

As when subbing for the Dom ?
Sorry don’t understand.
go ask Emma...
;- )

Ian Dalziel

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:10:37 +1200

Errorists...
I often read it out loud...
That's how we used to do it in the proofreaders' room at The Press – before the machines 'won' – a reader and a copy-holder, who would often tick each word, four eyes and ears, two brains, and even then the odd mistake…

Hebe

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:07:10 +1200

? Sorry don't understand.

Hebe

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:05:52 +1200

But from the perspective of a corporation managing resource units Infinitely more valuable: subs keep expensive lawsuits away and fill more pages more quickly than a reporter. I'm not making a value judgment but an observation.

linger

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:05:46 +1200

Rarely, the two species can exist peaceably side by side and even intermarry.As when subbing for the Dom ? :-P Sorry, couldn't resist.

linger

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:04:23 +1200

I'm a pretty good editor, even of my own writing — but I do have a considerable advantage in that I'm usually not working to a constant short deadline. Most of the time I can leave my stuff sitting around for a week before coming back to it.

The concomitant…

Marcus Turner

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:02:42 +1200

Wolfing down a curry improved things considerably.

Somewhere, we should preserve and cherish lines like this.

Bart Janssen

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:00:13 +1200

Subs are journalists, oftentimes with many more years of experience than the reporter.

But from the perspective of a corporation managing resource units ...

Bart Janssen

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:58:19 +1200

expecting everything to be wrong

I often read it out loud, it isn't great for my office mate nor for avoiding the mad scientist look, but it does catch some errors.

Hebe

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:55:24 +1200

Or perhaps more accurately treat sub editors as non-creative workhorses who can be packed into an open plan office to churn through their work without distraction by journalists.Subs are journalists, oftentimes with many more years of experience than the reporter. Rarely, the two species can exist peaceably side by side…

merc

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:10:37 +1200

I read it backwards, true.

G in J

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:10:14 +1200

it is hard to proof one's own copy

It is that. A colleague of mine recently recommended Claire Kehrwald Cook's Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing to me, and it has proven useful. Much of it is stuff you already know, but it's nice to have a…

Russell Brown

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:07:31 +1200

Update: We’ve just also confirmed Rick Neville, COO and Editor-in-Chief, APN NZ Regional Newspapers and acting Head of Content at APN.

Ian Dalziel

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:07:17 +1200

My eyes seem to run over the mistakes and my brain just fills in with what I meant to write.
The trick is to read the text expecting everything to be wrong...

Bart Janssen

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 13:51:58 +1200

And on topic. It seems that the problem is one of the corporate entity operating to maximize profit. In this case it is more profitable to out(in) source editing. Or perhaps more accurately treat sub editors as non-creative workhorses who can be packed into an open plan office to churn…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 13:46:05 +1200

it is hard to proof one's own copy

Yes! I'm a decent proofreader, something of a surprise to me because my spelling is not great. But for the life of me I can't proof my own writing. My eyes seem to run over the mistakes and my brain just fills…

Russell Brown

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 13:40:58 +1200

No worries. I'd been flat out since 6.30am — finishing a magazine feature, conducting a satellite interview, being interviewed on the radio, and trying to write the blog post — and I was fading a bit. Wolfing down a curry improved things considerably.

Keir Leslie

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 13:16:14 +1200

Good grief, Posner must have loved that one.

Deborah

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 13:12:37 +1200

I'm sorry, Russell. I wasn't trying to get at you I know how very hard it is to proof your own work. I really did think it was deliberate, a nice way of showing that a good sub is gold.

Most Beloved First Citizen

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 13:03:49 +1200

ETA: There's quite a few more, but it does seem unsporting to grab all the hidden treasure for oneself.

Except if you are at a pirate party and you are the biggest.

Most Beloved First Citizen

Lyndon Hood

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:58:35 +1200

Somewhere someone did daily updates from court in part of the Gaiman/McFarlane suit over the ownership of Spawn characters. My take away message was that this is one of those fields where people say the oddest things in court. And in judgments.

Russell Brown

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:44:37 +1200

ETA: There’s quite a few more, but it does seem unsporting to grab all the hidden treasure for oneself.

I’m grateful for any sharp eyes – it’s been a very busy morning – but you can just DM me on Twitter or something. I think I'll grab some lunch now.

Deborah

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:43:13 +1200

That's just too honest of you, Russell!

Russell Brown

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:41:47 +1200

So… ummm… there are quite a few typos in this, which I’m guessing is deliberate?

No. I came in from doing the satellite interview and had to write it very quickly to I could do a radio interview. Just had another editing pass on it. But yeah, it is hard…

Deborah

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:38:52 +1200

And should it be, “subs bench” or “subs’ bench”?

ETA: There's quite a few more, but it does seem unsporting to grab all the hidden treasure for oneself.

James Butler

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:37:17 +1200

Buteven though some of the APN…

Just getting into the spirit of things…

Deborah

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:36:51 +1200

So... ummm... there are quite a few typos in this, which I'm guessing is deliberate?

Public Address

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:36:50 +1200

Discussion from blog post.