I’ve been working at the NYT Student Journalism Institute this week. I’m convinced they ask reporters to be editors here so we can feel like giant hypocrites whenever we hear ourselves saying things like “add more sweep to the nutgraf” and “your 8th graf is actually the lede.”
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have you changed anyone’s lede to be more dramatic, verging on inaccurate?
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it’s important to teach them to speak up! I’m very not-precious about my writing usually, especially with reported pieces, but I once insisted we not describe someone as “wide-eyed” simply because I knew no one who knew that person would ever use that word to describe them
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No, you're totally right. The best editing is an exhausting push and pull, or at least exhausting for my editors. If anything, I hope I help the students learn to be precise and that writing matters a lot.
End of conversation
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