Copy editors and subeditors appear to be headed for the pasture. They’re getting laid off. The Orange County Register said recently that it would outsource copyediting to India. Roy Greenslade tells us that CityAM is getting rid of subs and that reporters will edit their own copy. You could say that’s what we bloggers do. Except the truth is that you edit me. When I mess up, you tell me. And because this blog is more of a process — a work in progress — than a product — the world neatly packed into a box with a bow on top, as newspapers like to think of themselves — that works well.
So I’d suggest that publications should put all their articles online before publication in wiki form and enable the public to edit and annotate them (you may choose which edits to take). Why would the public do that? Why do they make Wikipedia? They’re generous if you give them a chance.
