More to copy desk chief's job than editing copy; it's about look and readability, too

I know why I like Liz Farrell so much. The copy desk chief for The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette is hard-driven and a little neurotic when it comes to her job, which means she would be just like me if I were smarter, funnier and female.

The main difference between us? I figured out what I wanted to do for a living when I was a sophomore in high school; I’m not sure Liz knows even now what she wants to be when she grows up. That’s not to say she isn’t devoted to and serious about her job or that she doesn’t enjoy it.

But consider the route she took to arrive in it.

Liz graduated from Gettysburg College with a degree in political science. She went to school to be in the FBI, first got turned on to writing when she wrote a column for the college newspaper and was working for the University of Pennsylvania’s department of psychiatry after graduation.

“I needed to make a decision,” Farrell said. “I knew I liked writing, but I didn’t want to be a reporter because I don’t like calling people or talking to them on the telephone. ... An editor’s life sounded sexy to me.”

It just didn’t feel quite so sexy when she got paid $7 an hour for her first part-time job in the business as a proofreader at the newspaper in Gettysburg. She got a promotion to a full-time job shortly thereafter, but there was still an hour-long commute and the deer she plowed into driving home one night. (Turns out, that was great training for her shorter-but-still-treacherous drive home along U.S. 278.)

Liz moved on to the newspaper in Frederick, Md., though not without a little cajoling. She received a rejection letter from the Fredrick News Post, and was going to let it slide until a co-worker convinced her to call up an editor there to ask why she didn’t get the job. By the end of the conversation, she not only had an offer in hand; she also had a written letter of intent, usually issued only when new managers are hired.

Liz came to the Packet to be copy desk chief six years ago and became copy desk chief of the copy desk of both the Packet and the Gazette when those departments merged about two years ago.

Now, you know a little bit about Liz, but you still probably do not know exactly what she does around here. Indeed, she has one of the most enigmatic but essential jobs at the newspaper, but if you don’t read her blog, The In Crowd (and if you don’t, you should; it’s hilarious,) you probably don’t recognize her name.

Long story short, Farrell supervises the copy editors, an old newspaper appellation that doesn’t quite describe the job these folks do. It entails a lot of late-night work but no bylines, and you’re prone to get feedback on your performance only if you’ve screwed up something.

And yes, copy editors do edit copy. At the Packet and Gazette, they work primarily as line editors, meaning they check spelling, grammar and punctuation and catch any obvious factual errors that have slipped past the city desk editors, who get the first crack at reporters’ copy. But it is the city desk, not the copy editors, that does most of the heavy lifting with regard to working with reporters to shape coverage and suggest any major, structural revisions to their copy.

Copy editors’ jobs have been around almost as long as there have been newspapers, but in most shops, the job description has changed greatly since the advent of computer pagination of newspaper pages about 20 years ago. These days, copy editors at small newspapers tend to double as page-designers, too. These are the folks who plan and physically assemble pages. (We do it quite well around here, too. In last year’s S.C. Press Association contests, Liz’s designers won eight of 12 awards open to them.) At the Packet and Gazette, the copy desk assembles all of the A section, much of the C section and some of the newspapers’ special sections.

Liz designs pages and edits copy herself. But because her department has so many responsibilities, scheduling and supervising shifts is a big part of her job. She also assists the city desk by assembling a budget of non-local wire stories for consideration at daily budget meetings. She is the main conduit between the newsroom and the production department, which means she also gets hip-deep in computer and server issues. She is the keeper of the newsroom stylebook, the document that catalogs the rules we make for ourselves that makes the newspapers look and read consistently from day to day.

“Most people really don’t understand what we do, but I think my job more than anything else is to solve problems,” Farrell said. “These days, it’s probably less about copy editing and (more about) getting people to read the paper based on picking interesting stories and writing interesting headlines. It’s less about the nit-picky things I really should be focused on.

“We just have to realize we can’t be perfect. Having to let go of that was hard, but when it comes down to it, we have fewer resources 365 days a year than we used to. We have a chance to undo our mistakes the next day ... and make new ones, too, I guess.”

Name: Elizabeth Farrell

College/degrees: Gettysburg College, bachelor's degree in political science

Current job title and number of years in it: Copy desk chief, 6 years

Previous job titles and work experience: Copy editor at The Frederick News-Post in Frederick, Md.; Copy editor at The Gettysburg Times in Gettysburg, Pa.

Notable awards/achievements: First place in online column writing from SCPA in 2008

What do you like most about your job?: The best part of the job is creating something that I know people will read. Whether this means choosing an interesting story, writing a compelling headline or choosing a piece of art that will stop people in their tracks, I like the idea that there's someone out there who wouldn't have read the page unless I had created it that way. I also like writing the In Crowd.

If you had to do something else for a living, what would it be?: If I weren't doing this, I'd want to write full time.

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