How To Be a Collaborative Editor

The journalistic process appears deceptively easy to outsiders: a journalist gathers information, they write their story, it gets published, it’s over. But that’s not the way it works at all. Journalists go through several steps before they are even allowed to write the story—including pitching the story, laying the groundwork for their investigation, consulting data, and interviewing subjects—and then, when it comes time to publish, there is still more work to be done.

This is the editing step. Editors play a crucial middle role between journalists and the public by helping the journalist refine raw ideas into digestible pieces of information that the public can actually use. How can editors best refine this themselves so that they are doing the most enhancement possible on a piece? 

Here are some things to consider.

FIRST THINGS FIRST—EDITORS MUST BE GOOD JOURNALISTS AND SELF-EDITORS

Being a good self-editor means that you put a lot of your best practices into play when dealing with your own pieces. For example, you can fact-check yourself, check your spelling and grammar, and read your piece to get a good idea of the structure, and what (if anything) may be missing before turning your piece over to a third party with a more objective gaze. It’s also crucial to know how to make your pieces as concise as possible—the less distraction there is from the subject at hand, the easier it is to streamline the piece for readers. 

Once you step into the role of editor for someone else’s piece, you can take many of these same practices with you: assessing the structure of the piece for what may be missing; removing flowery language and streamlining ideas to make them more concise; and even fact-checking are all a part of the editorial process regardless of who’s work you’re editing.

APPLY A CRITICAL EYE AS BOTH EDITOR AND AUDIENCE MEMBER

As editor, you want to make sure the piece you are looking at has followed journalistic best practices. Does this reporter cite enough sources to back up their claims? Does the story have huge holes in it and need to be readdressed? But from the audience’s point of view–are there any claims that come out of nowhere, or that don’t make sense? Is the article too dense, too long, or too wordy? The International Journalists' Network (IJN) recommends making an objective to cut a piece down by 60 or so words and see if the story can still be told.  

GIVE THE REPORTER FEEDBACK

Poynter notes that editors are crucial to giving reporters feedback and that an “encouraging, constructive editor goes a long way in developing a beginning reporter’s self-confidence and interest in journalism.” Importantly, giving your reporter feedback in a constructive way—such as making suggestions for edits in their piece rather than changing their article completely, or else directly noting what changes you have made and why—can really help foster a stronger relationship between journalist and editor. This method also will inform the journalist on some new steps they can put into their self-editing process. Once you both can agree on the details, it becomes crucial to honor the writer’s work while expanding on it.

The editing process can be overwhelming, especially when dealing with another writer’s work. Editing involves the actual work itself (for an exhaustive list of tactics and best editing practices, click here) and conversation with the initial reporter. That person’s journalistic process stands to benefit a lot from conversations about the editing process, and together, you can create better work than either of you could create on your own.