The magnitude of cutbacks in the printing industry is beginning to show in their product. Writing is the main staple of the printing industry, without it, they have no industry.
In a society where more is better for less time, money, and effort is a necessity for any company to run successfully is hard for those that need time to create their said product. The newspapers, magazines, and others have been hit hard by the demands for more material at a faster rate.
The internet has helped alleviate some of the stress off the printing industry by allowing the newspapers, magazines, etc. the chance to place little tid-bits of daily news up online fast enough to please the consumers. Unfortunately this wasn’t enough to save the multitude of jobs lost because of the cutbacks they had to make. Many of the first jobs to go were the editing positions.
At what point is quantity better than quality? How many mistakes in locally and nationally published material must there be before the value of an editor is recognized? Yes, we live in a world where we demand more and more every day, but we demand more of the same quality or better, not worse.
Consumers expect better out of printed matter. Little grammatical errors should be caught before being published. This is harder to do when editing teams are being eradicated. In some cases Post-Dispatch editing teams that numbered around 40 members are being nearly cut in half to 21 members. Yet we expect a team of 21 to do what a team 40 could do in less time and more material at the same quality. As Bill McClellan, a Post-Dispatch Columnist stated “You never do more with less. You do less with less.”
The future of editing is looking dimmer and dimmer, but there are some things you, can’t let go published without a second glance. Eventually consumers will see the importance of an editor’s job and began to truly value it for what is worth.