Interns offer advice for copy editors

Preparing students for their summer jobs as multi-platform editors

By Bradley Wilson
CMR Managing Editor

Twenty-one years ago, a senior lecturer at the University of Texas, Griff Singer, recognized a need, a need to train copy editors. Together with Rich Holden, then executive director of the Dow Jones News Fund, they created the Center for Editing Excellence to train interns. They all received two weeks of training before they set foot at media outlets such as Newsday, the Houston Chronicle, the Beaumont Enterprise, Stars and Stripes, the Dallas Morning News or, as the profession has evolved, worked in copy editing centers such as Gatehouse’s Center for News & Design, or for online media such as Buzzfeed.

Over time, they’ve continued to focus on the different levels of editing:

  • LEVEL 1 — law, ethics, appropriate sources, different angles; edit upon conceptualization
  • LEVEL 2 — organization, design, enough reporting; edit with drafts and rewriting
  • LEVEL 3 — grammar, spelling, punctuation, style; edit at the last minute

In the last few years, the students have added to their skills in headline writing, trimming news briefs and designing pages and learn more about embedding video and best practices for Twitter. While now the training is only 10 days, it is just as grueling. Students, mostly college juniors and seniors, spend their last three days producing a six-page newspaper, a website and social media in real time with real publication deadlines — the Southwest Journalist.

The training center at the UT-Austin is one of six centers, two focusing on editing and preparing interns for their summer jobs as multi-platform editors. The other four, now led by Linda Shockey, managing director of the Dow Jones News Fund, focus on business reporting, data journalism or digital media.

Before they left each of the interns in Austin offered some advice for other copy editors. Here is their advice. Continue reading “Interns offer advice for copy editors”

Review: Hate: Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech, Not Censorship

Nadine Strossen’s book on free speech arrives at precisely the right time

Reviewed by Carolyn Schurr Levin

These are perilous times for free speech on college campuses. So many invited speakers are being “uninvited” because of their disfavored views that the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) maintains a database of “Disinvitation Attempts.” Students have faced expulsion and faculty members have faced punishment, including dismissal, for talks, online posts, or otherwise expressing disfavored views. College newspapers have been forced to apologize for stories or advertisements labeled as offensive “hate speech.” Some have experienced the theft of newspapers from their racks. And college media advisers are increasingly fearful for their own jobs and the very existence of their media outlets due to their publication of content that might be perceived as unpopular or unwelcome.

Enter Nadine Strossen at precisely the right time with her consequential new book, Hate: Why We should Resist It With Free Speech, Not Censorship. Strossen, a professor of constitutional law at New York Law School and a former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, provides needed elucidation about the grossly misunderstood concept of “hate speech,” not just on college campuses, but in our larger society. Strossen dispels the notion that “hate speech” is not free speech and she vehemently argues that the remedy for speech that might seem harmful to some eyes is more, not less, speech.

Continue reading “Review: Hate: Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech, Not Censorship”

Pinnacle Award Deadline Extended

Student entries due no later than June 8

So, it’s the first week in June. Do you know where you Pinnacle Awards entries are?

If you don’t, you are in luck, thanks to an entry deadline extension entries will be accepted through June 8, according to Pinnacle Awards co-chairs Don Krause and Brian Thompson.

“We get it, school’s over and you’re already thinking about summer vacations, internships (and possibly!) attending the mega workshop,” Krause and Brian Thompson posted on the CMA site. “Don’t miss this opportunity!” Continue reading “Pinnacle Award Deadline Extended”