Copy Editors

Kaus lays into John Carroll for insisting to the LA Times's owners that "copy editors were an important part of making a good paper great", and that they didn't have enough at the Tribune. Kaus sides with the Tribune's position, that a paper can be great without that many copy editors. Personally, I think Carroll is right; copy editors are vitally important. When I moved to New York 10 years ago, and began reading the NY Times daily, the first thing I noticed was that it badly needed more copy editors, and their lack was painfully obvious. Forget about the content, the NYT regularly contains embarrassing editing errors. And when it comes to content, however many copy editors the LAT has, it's clearly not enough, as Patterico demonstrates regularly.

On the other hand, Kaus is right that "good copy editors are hard to find". Jo Walton and her commenters expand on this point at length.