well, without knowing anything official, it seems as if the first, and hopefully only, round of redundancies has been completed at my workplace, the gold coast bulletin. 23 in all.
five from photographics, four from sport, three from admin/clerical, four from our sister weekly, the gold coast sun, one from business, four from features, one from art, and one from the back bench of the newsroom.
if there is any positive to come out of this, it seems to be that our management has resisted the urge that many american papers seem to have to succumbed to, and has not purged the copy desk.
subeditors are at the heart of a newspaper’s quality control. without them, the paper is exposed to all kinds of claims of crappiness, not to mention the threat of really fucking up legally.
writing clean copy is not necessarily the strength of the average journo, particularly these days, when kids seem to come out of high school and uni without knowing the difference between then and than, let alone how to parse a paragraph. god help us.
subeditors are the only thing between a journo and the obliteration of the english language, trust me.
