Editorial Privilege

Some editors make a contribution, some editors are just gatekeepers, some are parasites, some are mufflers, and some are gags.  We have to make them earn their keep. As media consumers, it's often hard for us to know what the editor contributed, but the journalists know and they need to speak up.

BuzzMachine: Editing’s a drag, 2008-May-30, by Jeff Jarvis

Rather than assuming that everything must be edited, we will need to ask why something should be edited, what’s the goal and what’s the cost (to the product and its urgency and to the budget). As newspapers continue to cut back, what do they need more: reporting or editing? I say reporting. Editors will not and should not die, but they will become a scarcer species.