Over vs. More than

By the way, one other thing. You know what's worst about this thinking (or one of the worst things)?

It used to be a hell of a lot more arduous from a production standpoint to put out a newspaper with things like hot type and no computers and then cold type, pre-pagination, than it is now. And yet those people managed to have the presses rolling and paper's hitting the door on time, and doing all the things you say are important, and STILL worry about the shit you say we shouldn't be worrying about.

 

I had no idea here was even a question about this.

The AP is the Bible on this one.

 

SF, you are missing the point.
I didn't say I don't care about this; it's secondary to other things that are FAR more important at a time when our resources are spread thin. If you are an overworked copy editor at my shop and you want to be messing around with "over" and "more than," fine, but you better catch all those fact errors first.

I used to get furious about these things. It would drive me crazy to pick up the paper and see someone write win as a verb. But that's just not that big of a deal when we're trying to get the game in around deadlines that are continually made more ridiculous, with fewer writers and copy editors to handle it.

 

OK, he said, calming down.

But, in my opinion, as a boss, I don't know you should be projecting an "I don't care attitude." If you're talking about what you react to after the fact, and that you don't care about more than/over if somebody's name is misspelled on your front page, fair enough. But we can still TRY to care about all of it.

 

When I was a copy editor, I took a lot of pride in grabbing those little things. They were small victories for me, which I used to energize myself for the next story. I took so much pride in having things completely -- at least, I thought so at the time -- perfect, grammatically and stylistically. I'm not saying I was a really good copy editor, but the good ones take pride in fixing any error -- big or small -- in my opinion.

 

As a boss, I would never project that. As a poster on this message board, I would make the point that as bosses, haggling over win or victory may not be the best use of our time. That's all. but then, hanging out here probably isn't either

 

I don't understand. It isn't?

 

I used to take great pride in catching these little things, too. Still would and do, as time allows. Most of us don't have that time any more and are going to have less time as production pushes our deadlines earlier and earlier. Just saying I am not going to beat myself up over it like I once did, and that yes, readers don't really appreciate or notice those efforts.

If we are forced to make choices, I will choose on the side of copy editors focusing on fact errors and better headlines vs. going around changing over to more than 20 times in AP copy a night.

 

BB, you keep bring up fact(ual) errors. Maybe you better talk to your writers about being better and not whine so much about how little time you and your desk have to handle copy.

 

All those fact errors? My goodness, if there are that many, you have a writer or two you need to be firing.

 

I used to work with a clown who would change "he was out with a hamstring injury" to "he was out BECAUSE OF a hamstring injury" and would always change the word "chance" as in "they have a chance to win the league title tonight" to "opportunity" as in "they have an opportunity to win the league title tonight" and tweak "Johnson led the team with 75 rushing yards" to "Johnson led the team in rushing, with 75 yards." And he was horrible on deadline. Shockingly.

 

I don't understand some of those.