Growing up professionally in a newsroom, I learned very quickly that there were certain realities and rules that were adhered to no matter what:
Four-letter words could be used liberally but never typed; the word “dead” was in deadline for a reason; the last person to the coffeemaker always made a fresh pot; you were paid just enough to take care of most of your bills and never a dime more; every single thing you did was for the benefit of the readers.
You can see why I have always been thankful for my soft landing transitioning from my service as a sailor in the Navy, to my service as a journalist at a newspaper. I’m not sure I would have made it doing anything else.
I was fortunate as hell to work alongside some truly great, smart, funny and twisted people while kicking around the newspaper business.
Yesterday, one of those truly great and twisted people, who is now a reader and a critic, hit me with a message which said in part: “Earl, you need a copy editor just like the remaining newspapers need copy editors, which no longer seem to exist.”
Deb was referring, of course, to the dying print industry, and the value of real life copy editors.
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