My Life of Hell - Sub-editor Tells All
1st May 2001
My brain hurts. I haven’t used it in some years, so there’s no surprise really. After managing to avoid external employment for a goodly time, a job has finally got its teeth into me and won’t let go. Which is not to say I’ve been totally lazy at home these past years, there’s been free-lunch work to do and projects such as the NZ Skeptic to help pass time. But all of these could be done in the privacy of one’s own home, dressed in striped jarmies if the mood took and it often did.
Now I have a part-time job at the local paper, writing headlines (my favourite to date ran with a four sentence story about the Alexandra Easter rabbit shoot: Bunnies Bagged) and subbing stories. This means going over copy with a fine toothed comb and making sure there are no errors of any kind. It also requires you know how to use the ancient computer system. It’s not easy being a sub.
People have these unfair expectations of you. Like you can spell and know good grammar and where to split an infinitive - all those things that I have tried to avoid most of my adult life since leaving school.
The biggest strain, of course, is the intense concentration to make sure everything is as right as it possibly can be, given restrictions of time. It was put very well in a January editorial in the Evening Post, which talks about the need for scepticism in the media and how every junior reporter is told to trust no one. “Experience in the news business proves day after day that no one is lily white” and that includes sub-editors!
Such scepticism has been found wanting in two instances earlier this year - the fiasco over Phillida Bunkle’s home address and the Children First Foundation’s use of Rangi Whakaruru (who later turned out not to be a good choice in fronting TV ads aimed at stopping child abuse.)
If these two organisations had been a mite more sceptical at the start, neither would have found itself embarrassed, apologetic and defensive.
“It’s worth remembering that … a not insignificant number among the community have barrows to push and motivations that aren’t especially worthy. Judicious questioning therefore is a useful skill, especially among those accepting and spending public money.”
Tomorrow while I sit chained to my computer, I shall try to keep in mind someone pushing a barrow… who knows, it may help. I must also remember that skeptic is spelt with a ‘c’.
Anyway, if I don’t say so myself, this is a particularly fine edition of the NZ Skeptic. And I take no responsibility for it. At the end of each day, after I staggered home and ordered a cup of tea, I’d ask husband David how the Skeptic was coming. It took a while, because the lead article we wanted to run on Sai Baba was unavailable. See, sub-editors have a truly tough job…) and Vicki, our wonderful chair-entity, had her own adventures, as you will see on page 16. However, we managed to get a copy of her address (thanks, Claire and Ros!) and in it you can find new ways to view dead hedgehogs. Honest. I’ll never walk past one again without thinking of Vicki.
