The only name that accompanies a newspaper article is that of the writer. Small wonder, then, that some readers believe the "by-lined" reporter writes every word, including the headline. In fact, a reporter never writes the main headline or any of the headings within the article. Neither does he or she choose the illustrations (though offerings and suggestions are always welcome), nor write the captions. He or she will seldom decide the length of the article, the size of the type or how or where the article will be placed, or even oif it will be published at all, writes Mary O'Brien
All these decisions and processes are carried out by people whose names never appear in the paper and about whom the reader knows nothing. These unsung heroes are variously described as copy editors, layout editors, production editors, etc, depending on what part of the production process they are responsible for.
In The Irish Times they are known generically as sub-editors, because most of them have expertise in all aspects of production and may work in several areas during any one eight-hour shift.
The sub-editor's job begins after the story has been written. Words pour in all day and all night to a newspaper office from a variety of sources and via a number of channels.
The reporter covering a car crash on O'Connell Street comes back to the office and types the story on the desk-top computer; the correspondent in Ulan Bator sends copy via a laptop to an international news agency from where it is routed to news media throughout the world; the journalist in the Dáil sends copy electronically; the man or woman standing on the sidelines in a local GAA pitch on Sunday dictates copy via a mobile phone to copytakers in Dublin.
But no matter where the words come from or to which department they go - home news, foreign news, features, etc - the basic tasks are the same. Text has to be edited, type sizes assigned, headlines written, illustrations chosen and pages laid out.
Text editing may involve cutting text or merging two stories from different sources.
A reporter may have been asked to write 100 lines, but the sub-editor may have to condense them to, say, 50 lines.
Striking out redundant words is one of the quickest and simplest ways to reduce the number of lines, while at the same time refining language style.
Though we use tautology in speech without thinking, a good sub-editor will seek out and destroy, with the precision of a surgeon, examples such as the whole world; absolute perfection; old adage; original source; past history; value judgments; young infant; total extinction; grateful thanks.
The sub-editor must also focus on grammar, spelling, clarity and meaning. Following a recent column I wrote on a fall in standards of English, a reader brought to my attention the unintended humour that can result from misplaced modifiers. He found all of the following in the pages of The Irish Times. The caption to a photograph described inmates as "protesting about conditions on the roof of Mountjoy Prison". A man was reported as telling the court "he recognised the man who solicited him to carry out a murder on RTÉ TV news". And a man was "cleared of murder by direction of the judge".
The sub-editor must also keep an eye out for cliché and "journalese". One of our senior sub-editors recently circulated the following humorous commentary on the ways we sometimes express ourselves. Volcanoes erupt; everything else, especially violence, breaks out or starts. Why did industrial unrest feel obliged to use a moving staircase and escalate, rather than increase, spread or worsen? New jobs could turn out to be rather messy and damp for workers, if they are in the pipeline rather than planned or on the way. Only pay deals for blacksmiths and panel-beaters can be hammered out; for others, they are concluded. And which well-informed urban canines know that all this is lazy writing? Why, the dogs in the street, of course.
Apart from the words it contains, the shape of the paper you are reading has also been decided by sub-editors, in consultation with department editors. How many lines across how many columns does this story warrant? How many lines for the headline? On what page should it appear? Does it need an illustration? What pictures are available? Does the graphic which has been prepared match the text?
These are some of the questions that have to be asked and answered about every story every night, often at frightening speed, by sub-editors. And the only oblique reference you will ever find in your newspaper to these backroom people is the occasional sentence in the Corrections and Clarifications column: "The error occurred in the editing process." When I'm writing that, I often think another sentence could be added to many parts of the paper: "This article has been improved in the editing process."
Like every other reader, I will never know who has written the heading on this article, nor, like you, will I know who has cleaned up my spelling and grammar so the article hasn't made your teeth curl.
Mary O'Brien is assistant readers' representative of The Irish Times.
Contact the readers' representative's office by e-mail readersrep@irish-times.ie or by telephone 01 6758000 from
11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday