The Human Side of Editing
By Adrienne Saunders
University of Maryland

St. Petersburg, Fla. Sept. 18 -- When the roomful of editors erupted in laughter at the sound of the program's title, "The Human Side of Editing," presenter Dr. Roy Peter Clark admitted it sounded like an oxymoron.

And as the knowing chuckles continued when Clark likened the typical editing process to cutting a cadavera during an autopsy, his point was made.

Clark, vice president and senior scholar at The Poynter Institute, emphasized a less one-sided approach to editing: coach the writer throughout the writing process.

Using a framework developed in his book "Coaching Writers," co-written with Don Fry, Clark offered 20 coaching ideals to promote collaborative work between editors and writers.

The points on his list served as discussion topics with the editors, as Clark outlined his philosophy of coaching. Among his points:

• The coach reads with, for and to writers. Clark suggests that editors share writing examples with their staff and deconstruct the examples into a road map for the writer.
• The coach inspires conversations with colleagues about how stories are edited. Ask writers about their writing process, and share your editing process with writers. Clark described these conversations as "interview sessions" that help each party understand the other.
• The coach creates a critical vocabulary for discussing the process and making decisions. Editors who define writing elements and tools with their staff make communication more productive and precise.

Clark encouraged editors and writers to read many genres of writing to enrich their understanding of story types. "If the reading culture of newsrooms could be ... inspired in some way, the quality of work could be improved," Clark said.

Susie Eaton Hopper, assistant managing editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, worked with Clark during a workshop at her paper and found the editor-writer interviews extremely helpful. "I found that when we stopped preaching to [the writers] about what we wanted and started talking to them ... it gave us a continuum to [communicate] in a more delicate way," Hopper said.

Adrienne Saunders is a master's student at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism and a features intern at The Baltimore Sun. She can be reached at (202) 352-8137 or This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .