Sub-Editing shifts

michelleb1985

Hey guys,
So Im a recently graduated freelance journalist and I am trying to get some work in sub-editing but I dont know how to go about it....does anyone know of any papers that use freelance sub-editors..I know Ireland on Sunday does in shift work, but I dont know about the rest. If anyone can help with info, contact numbers, emails, etc, Id really appreciate it

santosubito

Try the Times and The Star, they both always have vacancies for casual staff. Also the Mirror and the Sun seem to be taking on extra subbing staff. The Herald as well.

luckat

And (ahem) if you're looking for work as a sub, perhaps it might be a good idea to use apostrophes.

michelleb1985

Pardon me - I didn't realise boards.ie was such a formal place...

flogen

It's not.
Luckat, michelleb1985 can be as precise or inarticulate as s/he likes, they aren't getting paid for this.

santosubito

luckat wrote:

And (ahem) if you're looking for work as a sub, perhaps it might be a good idea to use apostrophes.

Also, it's not such a good idea to start a sentence with and.

luckat

The convention about starting sentences with 'and' is just that - a convention. It's not grammatically incorrect.

I wouldn't normally bother about anyone using apostrophes or not when they're posting on boards, but someone who's specifically talking about looking for sub-editing work isn't advertising her services that well by ignoring them.

flogen

I'm pretty sure the OP understands what it takes to be a sub, now if this thread is going to dive into a bitching session about other people's bad grammar then I may as well lock it now.
Has anyone got any constructive posts for the OP and their original topic?

santosubito

flogen wrote:

Has anyone got any constructive posts for the OP and their original topic?

I do indeed.

I'm curious as to why s/he wants to get into subbing straight after college.
Why would anyone want to go to uni, get a qualification, get yourself into debt...all to be able to check a better paid colleague's spelling?
Obviously, journalism is a broad church and there's nothing wrong with subbing (well, I'm just being polite, actually. In my opinion, most subs are crap and no good at their job. In fact, they only seem to have a talent for putting mistakes into a reporter's copy).
Also, there is a disturbing trend now in most nationals of bringing in young kids from college and putting them on the subs' desk with absolutely no experience.
But how can they, in all honesty, be expected to improve copy written by a reporter with 10 or 20 years' experience?
Why don't you go and learn how to be a reporter first before trying to be a sub.
In the good old days, being a sub was prestigious, something to be aspired to after years as a reporter.
Now, they're mostly muppets.
Woodward, Bernstein, Fisk, Waugh, McIlvanney, Hersh, Pilger: can anyone name me a famous sub?
Oh, and I didn't say it was a mistake to start a sentence with and.

luckat

Couldn't agree more. Subbing is something that requires experience and expertise with language, at the very least.

No, there are no famous editors; but Woodward, Bernstein et al are famous because of the work of their editors as well as because of their own investigative work and their own writing skill.

Reporters who think subs wreck their wonderful work are often unaware of how many serious scrapes they've been saved from without anyone saying a word - both in terms of legalling and in terms of embarrassing linguisting faux pas. Sometimes the reporters most precious about their copy are those with the most need for subbing.

zenith

Well, other than it being indoor work, with no heavy lifting - and generally regular-ish hours, at least compared to the rest of the business - I suppose the design, layout and creative aspects of sub editing are appealing.

The OP didn't actually differentiate between copy and page subbing when she asked, so maybe she wanted to do page subbing.

Famous editors might include, without thinking too hard: Ben Bradlee, Conor Brady, Douglas Gageby, Rebekah Waide, Piers Morgan, Alan Rusbridger ...

I concede on a famous pre-press person or a printer. Caxton or Gutenberg don't count.

Misumi

A good insight re sub-editors from the New York Times (I think?), should be of interest...

Keep the sub-editor happy

Largely quiet and unassuming, a sub-editor can turn your definite front page splash into a three-line item buried in the classifieds; such is his or her importance. Here, an experienced sub explains how to stay in his good books and on the paper's pay-roll.

“The sub-editor's desk is like the back part of a furniture factory that checks everything is rigid and sturdy before the goods go out to the shop floor,” he explains.

“Sometimes stories need a bit of sanding and polishing or a screw or two tightening up before they’re ready to go – sometimes they need to be totally dismantled and put back together again.

“If someone’s written a story and it's missing a crucial piece of information and they’ve tried to conceal that fact (and it happened at least once a week at a certain tabloid I used to work for) – then not only does it break when we sit on it but we have to take the whole sodding thing apart and put it together properly."

The sub says freelance reporters often make more work for him by 'over-writing' their articles in a number of different ways.

“Periodically, reporters - and especially freelancers - pretend their story is something it’s not and they attempt to hide that fact," he says.

“If a staff reporter has written a story and said: ‘I’m sorry but I just can’t nail this piece down,’ and he keeps doing it over a prolonged period, then his job may eventually be in danger. But in the short-term, at least, he's still going to get paid.

"Freelance reporters and news agencies, however, are only getting paid if their story gets used so they have an incentive not to be entirely honest.

“It’s an extremely silly thing to do because of the potential long-term repercussions. Someone at some point is going to spot the inaccuracy.

"If it's an otherwise decent story and they let us know where the holes lay, we can remove the parts that can't be stood up out or we can paint over the cracks professionally, which we're much better at doing than the reporters. Trust us! If you tell us everything, we can make the best of the job. If you don’t want to tell us for whatever reason then it’s just going to make things harder our end."

Something else that annoys subs is when someone tries to turn a 450-word story into a 1,000-word feature because they’re getting paid by the word.

"If the paper’s really busy then it can be that 1,000 words of copy gets 1,000 words of space and then it gets to the sub who has to go through it … then we see all the tricks the reporter's used," the sub says.

"Most reporters who try to employ them aren’t particularly good at it – it’s like trying to write your A-level essay in really big letters so it looks like you’ve done more work.

"One of the main things reporters do is to put their whole piece into the passive form because they can then use “injectable” words – but what does the sub do when he comes to look at it? He goes through it taking out everything in the passive and rewriting it in the active, because it reads much better that way, so you’re re-writing the piece and you see the word count begin to shorten and the distance between the end of the article and the bottom of the page space increasing – which we then have to fill in 20 minutes because some guy who has had a whole day to write it has been 'padding-out'!

"I would much rather someone wrote a 450-word story as a 450-word story. Short-term, it might hurt your income, but long-term it makes you a more useful freelancer. Another trick is that people will repeat quotes or other things they’ve written so the sub-editor will read the same thing written over and over, and of course, most of it has to go – that really gets on my nerves!"

Double check

A reporter not checking their facts is another thing guaranteed to make them unpopular on the subs' bench, the sub says.

"The misconception that newspaper production staff have every available fact at their fingertips is at best annoying. The main people who do this are writers with wide ranges of interest - they know a little bit about a lot of things and not much about anything in particular. There’s also no excuse whatsoever for not checking the spelling of someone’s name or a place name.

"If someone files a report about Gordon Brown on holiday in Massachusetts and they’re filing from there, I might assume they know how it’s spelt if I’m working against time."

The danger of overlooking these golden rules, the sub explains, is that you run the risk of soiling your name and reputation, not only with the pack-animal-like subs, but in the industry as a whole.

"There are reporters on every paper with terrible reputations and they probably don’t know they’ve got terrible reputations because all of their work gets 'fixed' by us before anyone else gets to see it," he says.

"When a reporter with a bad reputation on the subs’ bench files a piece, the chief sub will tell everyone to check every detail in the story, which means it takes longer because you then have to go into the cuttings library and check every obscure fact and figure."

Some reporters, even big name reporters writing for major publications, fail to recognise they owe a fair chunk of the respect they gain through their published work to the subs - or make-up artists - working behind the scenes, the sub says.

"I’ve never met anyone working for a national newspaper who didn’t think they were rather brilliant, but the subs’ desk often has other ideas about them based on the copy they have dealt with.

"We’re like make-up artists who see the stars naked before they walk onto the set. Where the public might think of someone as the most beautiful person in the world, we’re in a position to say: 'Well actually, they’re not so great!'"

Mutual respect

Reporters, however, can sometimes be the wrong camp within the production process to blame if their stories topple under our sub's invariable heavy load during the testing stages...

"It’s not always fair to blame the reporter because of the stages a story follows," he says. "This can start at the commissioning stage where someone might not quite know what they want or they will change their mind half way through the piece’s production.

"You might have a features editor who has an idea for a piece who then goes to the chief editor to suggest it. The chief editor - having some vague recollection that someone else is already doing something similar, but not the same - might try to merge the two. All the while, the person who’s actually trying to write it is left out of the loop and when it eventually comes back to us we find their piece is neither one nor the other!

"I do appreciate that reporters are under immense pressure sometimes and are often working under difficult conditions. It’s very easy to sit in a nice warm office and be rude about them. They’ve often done an extremely good job under near-impossible circumstances that I simply couldn’t do."

Of course, where would any workplace be without trusty old favouritism? The newsroom, of course, is no different, the sub reveals.

"How much we're prepared to cover up blunders and smile about it can depend on how much we like the reporter involved," the sub admits.

"If we like them we can smile on their idiosyncrasies and the fact that they get confused between pounds and dollars and such like. If we don’t like someone, we’ll get more annoyed at their mistakes."

As for climbing ahead as a great reporter in the world's newsrooms, your best bet might just be to keep your head down, stick to what you’re good at chat regularly with the subs who tailor your work.

"People might think they have to be great writers to report for a national newspaper, and there are many great writers working in the press, but there are also many other writers working for papers, and they’re not great fact-gatherers," he says.

"Different writers are good over different distances, like runners, so one reporter will be great at doing a hundred words, but give them 500 to do and they’re suddenly lost.

"The thing reporters should remember about subs is that if they've got the basis of a good story, we can make it a great story.

"If you can’t write, it doesn’t matter, just say everything that happened accurately in the right order and we’ll take care of it – if you’ve got some nice flourishes then leave them in and maybe if we like them, we’ll work them in too."

santosubito

zenith wrote:

Well, other than it being indoor work, with no heavy lifting - and generally regular-ish hours, at least compared to the rest of the business - I suppose the design, layout and creative aspects of sub editing are appealing.

The OP didn't actually differentiate between copy and page subbing when she asked, so maybe she wanted to do page subbing.

Famous editors might include, without thinking too hard: Ben Bradlee, Conor Brady, Douglas Gageby, Rebekah Waide, Piers Morgan, Alan Rusbridger ...

I concede on a famous pre-press person or a printer. Caxton or Gutenberg don't count.

I asked if anyone knew famous subs, not editors.

Most of those editors were reporters, not subs, before they were elevated.

santosubito

Largely quiet and unassuming, a sub-editor can turn your definite front page splash into a three-line item buried in the classifieds; such is his or her importance.

I think modern day subs are probably less important than ever before, because they're so bad. Subs just aren't trusted. And they certainly don't have any power. The backbench has all the power, not the subs.


“The sub-editor's desk is like the back part of a furniture factory that checks everything is rigid and sturdy before the goods go out to the shop floor,” he explains.

"The sub-editor can be relied upon to miss any libels, maybe even add a few on a good night," more like.


"If it's an otherwise decent story and they let us know where the holes lay, we can remove the parts that can't be stood up out or we can paint over the cracks professionally,

WTF? What on earth is the reporter doing sending over a stor that cannot be stood up?

"It’s like trying to write your A-level essay in really big letters so it looks like you’ve done more work."
Looks like this is coming from a British medium.

"There are reporters on every paper with terrible reputations and they probably don’t know they’ve got terrible reputations because all of their work gets 'fixed' by us before anyone else gets to see it," he says.

Is this meant to be funny? Who is this fella? Sounds like some bollix who thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread (or if you're a sub sliacedrfda breaddad).

"I’ve never met anyone working for a national newspaper who didn’t think they were rather brilliant"

Can't argue with that!

"The thing reporters should remember about subs is that if they've got the basis of a good story, we can make it a great story."

I'm speechless.

"If you can’t write, it doesn’t matter, just say everything that happened accurately in the right order and we’ll take care of it – if you’ve got some nice flourishes then leave them in and maybe if we like them, we’ll work them in too."

Listen, a downtable sub should merely check for spelling, cut to size and send it on.

Maybe this is an old piece. As I said earlier, most modern-day subs are just muppets who have no experience of reporting whatsoever.

flogen

Just out of interest SS, would this be an experience of yours since you began working in Journalism, just with one or two newspapers or is it something that is felt across the board with people you know in other newspapers?

I remember being told that a good sub should always go un-noticed, then you know they've done their job.

santosubito

flogen wrote:

Just out of interest SS, would this be an experience of yours since you began working in Journalism, just with one or two newspapers or is it something that is felt across the board with people you know in other newspapers?

I remember being told that a good sub should always go un-noticed, then you know they've done their job.

Well, I've been doing this reporter thing for 13 odd years. I've worked in several newspapers, Sunday and daily. I know dozens of national reporters.
I have to say, the vast majority of them despair of subs.
I've had really, really, sh1t experiences with subs in every paper where I have worked.
I'm using a bit of poetic licence (yes, dear subs, that's the proper spelling) here. I know of several subs who are really first class. They have saved my bacon big time on many occasions.
But they're all experienced people, who spent years at the business end of reporting. They are, in my opinion, in a minority nowadays.
I despair of young people who think they can be an even decent sub having completed DCU, DIT or the Coolock one you attend that I can't spell.
Think about it. Subs have to be better than reporters to impropve their copy.
Most, I'm afraid to say, nowadays disimprove stories because they are yellow packs who are no good. Or rather, they haven't had the chance to hone their skills.
Think how it must be for me or someone of my generation for some 22 year old to believe they can change what I write because they know what I was really trying to write.

flogen

Fair point, I personally know that my grammar and spelling isn't nearly as good as it should be and is something I hope to improve. Besides the obvious like that a good reporter and/or sub needs to know how to word a good sentence, regardless of the technicalities. This is, in my experience, not something that can be discovered through mock examples but instead through actual experiences.

Oh, and it's Coláiste Dhúlaigh by the way (although technically I'm a University of Wolverhampton student... for better or worse)!

luckat

First, sorry, Michelle - I didn't mean that to sound quite so crushing as it did.

Second, you have your own good reasons, I'm sure, for wanting subbing work - for instance, you may have a child to support, and subbing is work that you can do and then go home and forget it, unlike reporting.

Or you may love page design, which is a skill allied to text subbing and equally valuable.

Whatever your reasons, I suggest that you first get some experience with small papers, and apprentice yourself, in your heart, to those older sub-editors that are obviously not only experienced but good at their work.

If there isn't a good local paper, you might try the smaller nationals - for instance the Sunday Business Post, the Tribune and so on.

Phone and then send in your CV; people will often ask you to come in to do a couple of free days' work "training" - this isn't a demoniacal attempt to get you to work for free, but a way of judging the cut of your jib.

(Being a reporter, by the way, doesn't necessarily make you a good sub - though it will give you an appreciation of the reporter's view of how a story should be treated. Reporting is quite a different skill. Many superb investegative reporters have little idea of how to write a story so that it's gripping, accurate and hard-hitting, all at the same time! For that, they need good subs.)

santosubito

luckat wrote:

Being a reporter, by the way, doesn't necessarily make you a good sub - QUOTE]

That's very true. I couldn't write a headline to save my life. It gives me a sore head just thinking about it.
But I would argue that a good reporter should be able to sub copy.

luckat

I'm not sure about that, Santy. Some of the best reporters I know are specialists, who - for instance - are able to take a company's reports apart and read them as I'd read a piece of copy. They're not necessarily able to write a killer lead-in, or put a sharp, funny head on a feature. God has not gifted us all equally in the same skills!

zenith

santosubito wrote:

.
Most, I'm afraid to say, nowadays disimprove stories because they are yellow packs who are no good. Or rather, they haven't had the chance to hone their skills.

That phrase 'yellow pack' is pretty strongly associated with one newspaper in this country, it is. Funny old world.

Yes, indeed: how are you supposed to soar like an eagle when you work with turkeys?

zenith

santosubito wrote:

I asked if anyone knew famous subs, not editors.

Most of those editors were reporters, not subs, before they were elevated.

You're right. Only making conversation.

Lothaar

Could anyone give me a little bit of info on the average subbing shift? What's the pay like? How long are the hours? Just general info.
I've got a few years experience as a writer and editor in the trades and I wouldn't mind moving into newspaper subbing.

Incidentally, I'm attracted to subbing because I actually enjoy sub-editing other people's copy, writing headlines and rephrasing copy to make it sound better. I'm not so pushed about fact-gathering, so I'm bored with reporting.

zenith

Most useful link ever for rates:

http://media.gn.apc.org/rates/

santosubito

Lothaar wrote:

I'm not so pushed about fact-gathering, so I'm bored with reporting.

Pervert!

luckat

I think that in fact most of the editors mentioned had worked as both writers and sub-editors.