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The third or fourth person in the food chain for an article and its associated art is the copy editor. He or she has the task of making sure everything ties in properly and that the style book has been followed. Things like making sure if someone is referred to by last name only that the full name has appeared earlier in the article. It's a horrible job. Also have the job of making sure everyone in a photo is properly ID’d. Everyone hates your guts. And it's a tough job. If an error slip through the copy editor gets the blame, deserved or not.

Copy editor is also responsible for fact checking. Everything stated in the article as fact must be able to be established by independent source. If the writer says so-in-so is so-and-so’s brother-in-law then the copy editor had better be able to provide the confirmation.

I was quite surprised at just how much goes into the publishing of a daily newspaper. And it all has to be done every day, day in and day out, even Christmas. It's truly a fascinating world. I wish I had gotten into it earlier in my work life. As it was, it turned out to be my last ‘real’ job before retiring.

The paper where I worked prided itself in having printed an edition every day for over 100 years! That's quite an accomplishment. At one time it was a family-owned paper and one of the best in the South. It was bought out by a news conglomerate and it by all accounts of those who had been there for 30 or 40 years it was never the same after that. Very conservative under the original owners, and even after the takeover it would still be considered conservative by newspaper standards.

I was in the news photo department and it was a real education!