US: About 2005 Knight Ridder plan to centralize copy desks

Posted by Jean Yves Chainon on October 24, 2007 at 10:40 AM

It seems that in 2005-2006 publisher Knight Ridder had developed a plan to consolidate its copy desks into a few regional centers, which could have led to diminished accuracy, according to Joseph Distefano, staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Bloomberg News is a well-known example of a publication that has no copy desk. But in Bloomberg’s case, the copy desk was replaced by a high editor-to-reporter ratio (compared to other newspapers), and each story was read by two editors, not counting managing and executive editors.

DiStefano noted that “whatever the advantages of such a system, it didn't appear to save labor.” The advantages are costs of course, but reducing editorial oversight and consequently accuracy can be much more costly for news publications.

“A news outlet that cuts or eliminates this function (copy desks) is probably cheaper to run - cheap like a blog, and just as unreliable,” wrote DiStefano.

Source: Poynter.org

Posted in :