Redaction

“ No man is safe if the hearsay reports of his conversation are to be given to the public without his own careful revision. When we remember that a proof-text bearing on the mighty question of the future life, words of supreme significance, uttered as they were in the last hour, and by the lips to which we listen as to none other,—that this text depends for its interpretation on the position of a single comma, we can readily see what wrong may be done by the unintentional blunder of the most conscientious reporter. ”

“ Dear Sir—In a late paragraph respecting the Southern Literary Messenger, you did injustice to that Magazine, and perhaps your words, if unanswered, may do it an injury. As any such wrong is far from your thoughts you will, of course, allow the editor of the Messenger the privilege of reply.
The reputation of a young Journal, occupying a conspicuous post in the eye of the public, should be watched by those who preside over its interests, with a jealous attention, and those interests defended when necessary and when possible. But it is not often possible. ”

“ In our own day there is still another source of information, which, agreeably or odiously according to the temperament of the reader, keeps us in touch with courts and what goes on there—the periodical press; while afar off in the future one can imagine the historian bent over his desk, surrounded by books and knee-deep in newspapers, selecting and weighing events, studying characters, developing personalities, and passing what he hopes may be a final judgment on the court and period he is considering. ”

“ But, if the press must needs be loaded, I would rather it should not be by my means. And therefore I may hope to be allowed one word in the style of a publisher (an office liable to much censure without the least pretensions to merit or to praise) that if I have not been much deceived in others and myself, the reader will hardly find one letter in this collection unworthy of the author, or which does not contain something either of entertainment or of use. ”

“ Not only are the editorials of a single editor and the editorials from a single newspaper collected and published in book form, but the editorials of one paper are reprinted on the editorial pages of other papers, they are reprinted as advertisements, they are copied in the news columns of the press, and they are collectively copied in an effort to secure a consensus of public opinion on important questions. ”

“ The people are true to the editors only just as long as the editors are true to the people. An editor, with no readers of his paper, is in a much more pitiable plight than a lawyer without briefs, or a preacher without a charge. ”

“ Other copy for the editorial page—letters to the editor, communications, verse, comments from other newspapers, and the like—is prepared by his assistants. “Editing” copy means preparing it for the compositor, putting it in the exact language in which it is to be printed.
Systematic, careful revision of all copy is necessary not alone to correct error of fact, of judgment, of good taste, but also to regulate the volume of matter. The notion that newspapers print articles “just to fill up” is as absurd as the intimation that they “print anything they can get.” ”

“ Every author, editor, or proprietor of any book, newspaper, or serial publication is chargeable with the publication of any words contained in any part of such book or number of each newspaper or serial, as fully as if he were the author of the same. ”

“ Of course, an editor never meddles, except under notice, with the letter of a correspondent, whether of a complainant, of a casual informant, or of a contributor who sees reason to become a correspondent. Omissions must sometimes be made when a grievance is too highly spiced. It did once happen to me that a waggish editor made an insertion without notice in a letter signed by me with some fiction, which insertion contained the name of a friend of mine, with a satire which I did not believe, and should not have written if I had. ”

“ THE number of correspondents which increases every day upon me, shews that my paper is at least distinguished from the common productions of the press. It is no less a proof of eminence to have many enemies than many friends, and I look upon every letter, whether it contains encomiums or reproaches, as an equal attestation of rising credit. ”

“ The impassive reader who first encounters a remark of this order is apt to ask himself if it be worth while to state so explicitly what everybody already knows; and behold! a week has not passed over his head before a dozen angry protestations are hurled into print. These meet with sarcastic rejoinders. The editor of the journal, who is naturally pleased to secure copy on such easy terms, adroitly stirs up slumbering sentiment; and time, temper, and ink are wasted without stint by people who are the only converts of their own eloquence. ”

“ I confess that there have frequently been times when it seemed that the easiest way to combat some statement that I knew to be false, or to correct some impression which seemed to me peculiarly injurious, would be to have a paper of my own or to pay for the privilege of setting forth my own views in the editorial columns of some paper which I did not own. ”

“ A pendant to the social position of the editor is the very considerable number of editors who have been imprisoned - usually for debt, libel, or blasphemy—and have continued to edit their papers from behind prison bars. ”

“ Section III. Upon the trial of the cause, if the evidence shall show the habitual publication and dissemination of false, defamatory or scandalous statements or representations, whether in the form of news, comment or illustration, it shall be the duty of the court to make a decree directing the suppression of the publication of the newspaper or newspapers, journal or journals, periodical or periodicals, pamphlet or pamphlets, circular or circulars, in whole or in part, as in its judgment may be necessary for the abatement of the nuisance. ”

“ All is dull, solemn, and dry—paper, paper, paper—a redundancy of paper, as if it were possible to transfer the blush of perjury to paper. Fifty people will make affidavits for one that will go into a witness-box and have the truth twisted out of them by cross-examination. ”

“ Mr. Editor: In your issue of June 21, 1877, an article appears, emanating from the business manager, indicating trouble ahead. He says that from the very fact of the editor receiving two letters to his one, and the supporters of our publishing department placing the major portions of their communications on the wrong current, the most pernicious effect is designed to flow through the stream of intellectual knowledge gleaned from the columns of the Christian Recorder. ”

“ Sir, before translating it, I wish you to review my book of philosophy for the Review.’
‘I shall be happy to do my best, sir.’
‘Very good, sir; I should be unreasonable to expect anything beyond a person’s best. And now, sir, if you please, I will conduct you to the future editor of the Review. ”

“ And instead of the letter itself, he copies what he says are the remarks of the editor, which are an exaggerated commentary on the fabricated paragraph itself, and silently leaves to his reader to make the ready inference that these were the sentiments of the letter. Proof is the duty of the affirmative side. A negative cannot be positively proved. ”

“ The worst offenders are those men who are loudest in their complaints against the reporters, and who are constantly writing to correct what they call “errors” in the summary of their speeches. A reporter puts in a grammatical and a moderately reasonable sentence or two the ridiculous maunderings and wanderings of one of these “public men,” and the only recognition he obtains assumes the form of a letter to the editor, pointing out the “omissions” made in the summary. ”

“ From these topics our conversation turned on literature and the representatives of the press.
“Our editors,” said he, “think themselves competent for the solution of every question, whether it refer to politics or poetry, to the settlement of the Western country or to Greek and Roman archæology. Once armed with a quill, they care not whom they meet in the arena. Fortunately it is their practice to praise indiscriminately every book, pamphlet, or poem, of which a copy is sent them ‘for notice;’ except when the author attacks their favourite doctrines, or pretends to be wiser than themselves. ”

“ More men are sent off to that; and, what with the fire and the wreck, every reporter, every copy-editor, every type-setter and proof-reader are put to their hardest work until the last minute before the last page of the paper must be sent down to the press-rooms. ”

“ Another effort of this same unfortunate he protested tearfully that he could not recognize in its printed form except by the strawberry mark, that is, the signature; and he said he wished the editor had revised that, too, while he was about it.
What is an editor? Is he omniscient? We know better. Are all the articles in his magazine supposed to bear the imprint of his ideas and style? ”

“ Sir,—The substance of the enclosed letter, so far as is necessary for the satisfaction of our fellow citizens, should be communicated to them. But the letter itself should not be published, nor be permitted to be copied. Because the source from which it comes will occasion every word of it to be weighed by your neighbors on the opposite shore, and every inference to be drawn of which it is susceptible. To aid their information as to our views, would give them an advantage to our own prejudice. ”

“ Should the proposal be adopted, no doubt some such paper as the following will be set to those desirous of obtaining the right of adding "M.I.J." to their names.
1. Would you as a Reporter venture to use such expressions as "devouring element" or "destructive fluid" in sending in "flimsy" to a London Daily Paper? State when you would consider yourself entitled to describe yourself "a Special."
2. What are the rights of a Journalist at a free luncheon? If an Editor finds himself present, should he return thanks for the Press himself, or leave that duty in the hands of a bumptious Reporter. ”

“ Have we not all some correspondents, though probably but few, from whom we never receive a letter without feeling sure that we shall find inside the envelope something written that will make us either glow with the warmth or shiver with the cold of our correspondent's life? But how many other people are to be found, good, honest people too, who no sooner take pen in hand than they stamp unreality on every word they write. ”

“ For the multitude the leading article is the obvious short-cut to convictions." [75]
It must be apparent that no off-hand statement that the editor controls the policy of the press or that he and the paper are both controlled by the owner is of weight unless it takes into consideration the factors of time and place. Equally necessary is it to remember the variations among editors and owners and even the variations in the moods and policies of individual editors. ”

“ Here let me say that this profuse exhibition on the screen of all the correspondence in the case, letters, telegrams, copies of verses, last wills and testaments, the whole dossier, strikes me as a mistake. It under-values the intelligence of the audience, which is quite capable of guessing what people are likely to write in the given circumstances without being put to the indelicacy of reading it. As it is, you no sooner see some one handling a scrap of paper than you know you are going to have the wretched scrawl thrust under your nose. ”

“ Nothing could be more grateful to me than to thank those who during my tenure of office have kept Notes and Queries at its present splendid height, and won for its editor in some outside circles a credit for erudition he is as far from claiming as from meriting—since, indeed, those are not wanting who hold that the editor is bound to possess the omniscience which his contributors supply. ”

“ When an editor discharges a member of his force for any good and sufficient reason—and surely a man must be permitted to manage and control his own business—no paper will publish a two-column article, with appropriate cuts, detailing the wrongs of the discharged journalist, and the hideous crime of the editor! ”

“ I suppose you could scarcely find an editor of a paper in the world, but what could conscientiously say the same thing. Now, am I to be dragged up here and executed for the utterances and the writings of other men, even though they were published in the columns of a paper of which I was the editor? Your honor, you must remember that the Alarm was a labor paper, published by the International Working People's Association, belonging to that body. I was elected its editor by the organization, and, as labor editors generally are, I was handsomely paid. ”

“ Likewise in many editorial rooms sits another all-wise man who in a semi-editorial capacity reads proof sheets of all matter in the same search for the undesirable. The managing editor, the night editor, and the night city editor also have proof sheets of all matter which they read devoutly for a dozen reasons. ”

“ The fact that a petition has been filed does not necessarily justify publication.”
Bear in mind, too, that a libelous statement is not excused by the fact that it is quoted. “It is said,” “it is reported” and like expressions scattered through a story are no defense against a suit for damages. The newspaper is responsible for everything it prints. Avoid the libel that lurks in qualifying words. A statement otherwise harmless may be so colored with adjectives and adverbs expressing disapproval that it will furnish ground for legal action. Let the plain facts tell the story. ”

“ In due course I called at the office to correct proof, and I was put into the hands of the sub-editor. It was one of those quarters-of-an-hour that make life worth living; for the sub-editor appreciated me; nay, he regarded me as something of a journalistic prodigy, and his adjectives as he ran through the proof were extremely agreeable. Presently he came to a sentence in which I had said that such-and-such a proceeding "smacked of red tape." ”