Guardian to Copy Edit Live Blogs 'Simultaneously'

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See above a screenshot from Harper's blog.(Credit: Guardian, screenshot)

The Guardian plans to have “subeditors” (or copy editors) copy edit blogs as they’re being posted to help ensure standards, the Guardian’s Barbara Harper wrote this weekend.

Harper is identified as the newspaper’s “corrections column co-editor.”

As Harper reported, the Guardian’s “blogs producer” Paul Owen explained “It’s important that live blogs are subbed to the same standard as articles, but that has to be balanced against the need for speed.”

Readers often call out the newspaper when its makes “an obvious spelling mistake or factual error,”  Harper wrote.  The newspaper’s copy editors “deal at speed with a large volume of copy and are now doing much more than the traditional downtable sub’s role of copy editing for sense, grammar and accuracy, cutting and headline writing,” she explained.

She added that copy editing standards are different for print and online, writing:  “A subeditor’s work is overseen by a revise editor before an article is finalled for print, but on the website most articles are launched first and revised when time permits.”

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Guardian to Copy Edit Live Blogs ‘Simultaneously’

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