Who is your editor? Who edits your stuff going online with Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Instagram, Substack, blog, email, or whatever platforms you use? Even with many so-called online news outlets, how much professional editing does their content receive? And what do we mean by editing?
In the old days of ‘words on paper,’ most professional, published news and literary content underwent greater editorial scrutiny. Imagine a crusty old editor, wearing a green eyeshade, chomping on a cigar, intimidating young reporters with quivering hands turning in copy. The editor’s blue pencil marked improvements needed in style, grammar, spelling, accuracy, fairness, or objectivity.
The closest I came to that scene happened in journalism school with a professor who came from a community journalism background. He looked and acted the part, without the eyeshade and cigar. When I became a newspaper editor, I felt the weight of responsibility for news judgment, copy editing, headline writing, and page layout. High standards for distributing information for public consumption meant something.
Comparing today’s digital information world with the ‘old world’ of print newspapers and magazines, and major network newscasts, we have lost much in the way of professional editing. It still exists in major, professional news outlets. Well, almost all. A certain cable network that started in the 1990s appealing to the extreme right has gone completely over the edge, (faux news). Whether or not it takes truth, facts, fairness, and democracy with it remains to be seen.
The proliferation of information online posing as ‘news’ has greatly diluted and weakened the position and influence of legitimate, professional news organizations. Back in the 20th Century the professional news media could take pride in being considered the “Fourth Estate,” government watchdog bolstered by the First Amendment. It set the agenda for public discourse. It influenced and reflected the arts, entertainment, and education. As businesses they attained great wealth. All of those continue, but are greatly diluted, particularly in the smaller markets.
As a managing editor at a regional daily newspaper, I could sense the power and influence that we had in the community. We covered local government. I wrote many editorials and columns about local issues. Along with the Associated Press news service providing state, national, and international news, we were the main news source for many of our subscribers, and we took that role very seriously. We adhered to the “social responsibility” theory of the news media, elaborated by the Hutchins Commission in 1947. It boiled down to trust and credibility.
Today, the suburban weekly newspaper where I interned as a journalism student recently closed. Another suburban weekly where I got my first reporting job no longer exists. The regional daily newspaper where I spent most of my journalism career is hanging on, primarily due to the company’s product diversity and digital acumen. When I left that job our local newspaper’s paid circulation exceeded 17,000 printed six days a week. Today the circulation is less than 7,000, with online editions Monday-Saturday, but printed only on Wednesday and Saturday.
According to an AP story, “At its current pace, the country will hit 3,000 newspapers closed in two decades, with just under 6,000 remaining; 43,000 newspaper journalists lost jobs; the advertising market is collapsing. There are 204 counties in the United States with no local news outlet, and 1,562 with only one. Paid print and digital circulation at 504 newspapers audited in 2023 was 10.2 million. In 2005 print circulation alone for those newspapers was over 50 million.”
Efforts to reverse that are failing, according to an area newspaper publisher. In a commentary in the Minnesota Star Tribune Feb. 9, Reed Anfinson says, “We’ve seen this cruel optimism at play over the past couple of decades when it comes to what is needed to save community newspapers and provide citizens with a healthy diet of information in a representative democracy. Instead, each solution leaves community journalism malnourished and our citizens feasting on the junk menu of the internet.
“Digital solutions have proven a dead end for saving newspapers. We’ve done the math at our three community newspapers. The digital advertising and subscriptions, while important, don’t support even one person. For most small-town newspapers, digital payments represent no more than 5% of their income. For community journalism to survive, citizens must play a role in funding its future through measures passed by our state Legislature and Congress. That funding must be secure and ongoing.”
We sorely miss the past extent of editing and gate-keeper roles of the professional news media. Its agenda-setting role helped to keep important public topics in view. Solid news judgment, professional editing, accurate and objective reporting, all contributed to trust and credibility in search of truth.
If nothing else, for any major content online, before you hit ‘send’, let the post sit for a day, or ask someone to review and give honest feedback. And if you have a local newspaper in your community, I hope you subscribe.
Next: Benefits of reading compared with viewing.
Photo: “Shoe,” one of my favorite comic strips by the late Jeff McNelly, with editor “Shoe” Shoemaker, left, and columnist “Perfessor” Cosmo Fishhawk.
