Copyediting is, depending on whose copy you have to edit, a fun job or a job that makes you crazy. I think it’s a little bit of both.

 

I experienced life on the copy desk this summer in Macon, Ga. It was my first summer away from North Carolina in a long time. Copy editing was cool. Macon was HOT!

 

My roommate was Eddie Cole Jr., the recently-installed editor in chief of the Tennessee State University student newspaper, ‘The Meter.’ As two black-college guys in an unfamiliar town, we went from complete strangers to homeboys pretty darn quick.

 

Eddie was a reporting intern on the metro desk. He traveled around the city and surrounding areas almost daily, learning the region and meeting new people, while I was pretty much confined to the copy desk from 4 p.m. until 1 a.m., or whenever the paper came off the press.

 

Like writing, copyediting is a skill, and it takes time to learn. It’s all about the details. Is the name in the story spelled the same way in the photo caption? Does the photo tie-in with the story? Does the headline tie-in with the photo and the story?

 

Does the story flow smoothly from one paragraph to the next? Is it concise without leaving out the important stuff? Is the important stuff at the beginning of the story? Are the facts in the story in proper context?

 

There were many more questions that I asked myself as I worked on around eight or nine stories each night and struggled to write an enticing headline. Sometimes I succeeded. My headline “Tick Tactics,” for a story about Middle Georgia’s ticks and how they bite people, won an award for the best headline of the month.

 

Other times I failed miserably. I have a long list of headlines that make me groan when I think about what I wrote.

 

The job is mentally challenging more than anything else. You have to decide what is correct, and you have to be on your P’s and Q’s.

 

There was this one time when I was editing a story about the Macon budget shortfall. I swear, Macon city finances are in a pitiful state. That administration wouldn’t know a balanced budget if it hit them in the-.

 

Anyway, the reporter wrote that the city was $1.4 million in the red. But, when I added the items in the story, I kept getting $1.2 million.

 

So I called my news editor, Ben, and I sez to him I sez “hey Ben these numbers add up to $1.2 million, not $1.4.” So he sez to me he sez “call the metro editor.” So I call him up and I sez to him I sez “hey Bernie, these numbers ain’t adding up, baby” and he sez to me he sez “lemme call the reporter. I’ll call you back.” So he calls me back and he sez to me he sez “yeah, Mike sez you right, baby, you right.”

 

And so the news editor comes over to my desk and he sez to me he sez “good catch” and I sez “yeah, thanks.”

 

That is what a copyeditor does. So unless Webster’s New World Dictionary weighs in and trumps my judgment, crunk is spelled with a c, not a k.

• Chad Roberts