5
Subediting
HOWEVER good a reporter is at news gathering and news writing the subeditor remains the necessary mediator between the writer’s text, or copy, and the finished newspaper.
The subeditor — who has usually been a reporter beforehand — has the important function of making a story the right size for the space allocated to it on the page, either by cutting it to fit or by collating several copy sources, checking the accuracy of the text and improving its balance and readability as necessary. This can entail ‘re-nosing’ the story to bring the news point to the reader’s attention, rewriting part of it in the light of later instructions or changing availability of space, or simply updating the text to take in ‘add’ matter sent in by the ...
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