Editing by the number
Posted on September 4th, 2009 by Peter Ong
Ask any editor how many stories they expect on Page 1 every day and you’re bound to get a number.
One editor I know insists on four stories every day. Do or die.
Some prefer 25 (Philippines’ Daily Star), some 3 and some 10.
To me it’s astounding that editors can conjure up a number and make that their golden rule of journalism with little regard to the quality and length of stories, design and so on.
Yesterday, I heard about how one editor got so upset there were only three stories on his beloved Page 1 instead of his magic 4, that he sent a nasty email to several people. One of them was nearly in tears!
Dictatorial journalism? Terrorist editors? They shouldn’t be in their jobs!
Amen!
As they say.. newsroom is no democracy… its a dictatorship! the editor after all has the last say like it or not… perhaps our designers need to be more vocal…
As a Sub-editor, Peter, I agree with you 100%. It’s always a problem for a sub if the news editor or an editor uses numbers. I usually deal with odd questions like “how many stories can we have on page one?”