Questions for a Newspaper Copyeditor: Pam Nelson

Pam Nelson has been a journalist for 35 years. She is currently an editor at the McClatchy Publishing Center in Charlotte, N.C., and a blogger at The Grammar Guide on the American Copy Editors Society’s website. 

Tell us how you got into editing and a little about your current editing and blogging gigs. 

My first job was as a features writer, but I also had copyediting duties. I enjoyed the editing more than the reporting, so after about a year, I moved to the news desk. When the copy desk in Raleigh was abolished (I had been there 24 years), we were given the choice of taking jobs at the McClatchy Publishing Center in Charlotte or taking a severance package and leaving the company. I chose to go to Charlotte. Since August 2011, I have been at the publishing center, where we do the page design and copyediting for The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), the Charlotte Observer, The Herald (Rock Hill, S.C.), and weekly and semiweekly community papers. I am primarily a features copyeditor for the three daily papers. 

My blog, The Grammar Guide, began in 2005 at Newsobserver.com. At the suggestion of Andy Bechtel, an ACES board member, and after a vote from the board and a lot of work from ACES webmaster Daniel Hunt, my blog was moved to the ACES site in December 2011. I am thrilled to be blogging at ACES. 

How is newspaper copyediting different from other work you’ve done? 

For a brief time in 2000, I was managing editor for HowStuffWorks.com. I realized how much people were turning to the Internet for useful information they could rely on. When I returned to newspaper work, I took some of that ethos with me, focusing my editing on making information reliable and useful. 

What advice would you give other editors interested in newspaper copyediting? 

Don't do it. Just kidding. I think there will still be a need for the skills that copyeditors bring to newspapers, even if the print product goes away. People will still want to turn to news sites for timely, reliable, accurate and readable information. Learn all you can about the language, news values, and technology of online publishing and history. Truly educated people with broad knowledge and a strong work ethic will always be in demand and valuable. 

What are some non-copyediting activities that you find helpful to your work? 

My husband and I like to travel around North Carolina, and I have found that helpful when I am editing stories about a certain place we have visited. When I am working in Charlotte and editing copy from the Raleigh area, I can picture the places and often know when something in the copy is off. 

If you weren't editing, what would you like to try as a career?

I would be a teacher. I trained as a teacher in college, and I see teaching as a part of my role as an editor and a blogger. 

Thanks Pam! 

You can find more of Pam Nelson and her copyediting world on her blog, Facebook, or Twitter @grammarguide.

Image courtesy of kozumel.