INTRODUCTION:

Reporters and correspondents write the news stories. Most of the time reporters and
correspondents are in a hurry. So there is every chance of mistakes in the news
stories. Most of the time reporters provide the ‘body’ of the news stories. But it is
the sub editor who puts 'soul' to the news stories. What sub editors do is called
editing. It is also known as sub editing, subbing or copyediting.
Commonly, editing is understood as dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Many
people think of editing as only an act of correcting the grammatical or factual
mistakes in news stories. This is, however, just one aspect of editing.
Editing, in fact, is the soul of journalism. It involves many things such as:
o Deciding what will and what will not be published,
o Making the selected stories palatable and presentable, and
o Shaping it to project the publication's policies and philosophies.
Editing is done to:
“Improve news stories or to change badly written news stories into readable
ones."
While editing:
"The sub editor cares about the language, he cares about clarity of thought
and of grace of expression, he cares about the traditions of journalism and the
tastes of the reading public".

EDITING- AN OVERVIEW
What is editing? Why is editing done? Who does editing? These are some of the
questions that come to the minds of beginners in the field of editing. Let us try and
find answers to these basic questions.
Editing is the process of improving the hurriedly written news stories and other
write-ups in to readable shape. Editing in newspaper terminology is called
copyediting, sub editing or subbing. The term copy editor is used in the U.S.A. while
the term sub editor is used in the UK and many other countries including India.
Editing is done with specific motives of checking and improving the following:
Punctuation, Spelling, Sentence Structure, Subject and Verb Agreement, Proper
Word
Use, Clarity, Point of View, Redundancies, Inconsistencies, Dialogue, Flow, and
Format.
In simpler terms, editing is done to improve news stories grammatically,
structurally, style-wise, factually, and in terms of readability.
And sub editors or copy editors do the editing. It is often thought that editors
do editing. No, the editor does not do editing. The sub-editor is the unsung
craftsman who works hard to improve the write-ups of the reporters. And the
reporters’ names appear with the news stories. Sub editors do not get any credit for
their hard work.
While reporters get the entire credit and acknowledgement in the form of bylines,
accolades, applause, appreciation and even awards, the sub editors toil away
in the newsroom. Reporters and correspondents take to the center stage while sub
editors man the backstage.
Editing, or sub editing, as it is popularly known, includes many activities.
These are arranging, reducing, adding, translating, selecting, checking and
adapting of news and other materials for publication.
COPY: Copy is nothing but written pieces - news stories, articles, features, etc.-
coming to a newspaper's newsroom from different sources - reporters,
correspondents, stringers, freelancers, news agencies, feature agencies, assigned
writers, etc. With newer technologies like telex, fax, teletext, modem, etc., more
copy reaches newsrooms more easily today. These need to be screened to select
the necessary stories.
In addition to processing copy, writing headlines and moving copy to the
production department, sub editors are also involved with certain aspects of
production like composing, layout etc. which is usually done on the computer.
Automation has made the job of sub editors easier.
But computers and other machines cannot replace sub editors (proof readers
and layout artists are almost extinct now). This is because of certain talents that
sub-editors have including the ability to edit copy and writing headlines. These two
abilities require sound judgment, scholarliness, varied exposure and
experience, memory, motivation, curiosity, imagination and skepticism.