Chapter 1 Review & Interpretation by Maxwell Rausch and Jesse "The Cat" Snyder

Okay, this is the most important stuff from Ch.1 of Creative Editing for Canadian Journalists:

The chapter starts by briefly examining the impact of the internet on the modern news industry...which doesn't seem like something that can be analysed in a couple pages. After that, it proceeds to discuss the specific role of the copy editor. They have a plethora of responsibilities including excercising good news judgement by making seemingly dull stories more interesting and concise, writing provocative headlines that attract readers' attention, writing cutlines, as well as correcting errors of fact and emphasis, and protecting and enhancing the publication's reputation. Moreover, copy editors have to keep up with the latest technologies and remain as open and knowledgeable as possible in order to do their jobs effectively. The best copy editors are intelligent, confident, objective, aware of their readers and the personality of the publication, have diplomatic and writing skills, and ideally should be hilarious.

Copy editors are part of a massive bureaucracy, just a step above the reporters at the very bottom. Although computers have simplified the editing process to a degree, copy editors are nevertheless crucial as they are they are last ones to see copy before the paste-up stage of production. Therefore, they are responsible not just for the written content, but also the layout and presentation of the content.

While doing their jobs, editors must excercise good news judgement by understanding the significance of timeliness, prominence, proximity (geography), relevence, conflict, resonance, and unusualness. The chapter delves into the specifics of the editor's job as well. They may be involved as early on as the planning stage, with the assigning of the story itself. The ditor rereads the story several times before it is actually published, and (especially online) they may update previously published editions of the story.

All in all, what we got out of this chapter in particular was that editors must remain stoicly objective, arguably moreso than reporters, in order to preserve the integrity of the publication. "Editors have an extra obligation to be objective. They must be able to view the material in a broader context and disregard the personality of the reporter who wrote it." In addition, we thought it was startling how huge the bureaucracy of news actually is, despite the effeciency afforded by online resources and recent downsizing.