Comprehension is not a requisite of compliance

• K. C. Cole surveys the challenge of being a science editor at The Columbia Journalism Review.

Editors have an awfully tough job, which is why it seems like there are so few worthy ones out there. You're basically asked to be a polymath, to have a grasp on anything and everything so you can help the writer critique and shape their piece to the best of their abilities. Cole gets into the unique difficulty of editing writing that deals with subjects that might be beyond your grasp:

Editors, however, seem to absorb difficulty differently. If they don’t understand something, they often think it can’t be right — or that it’s not worth writing about. Either the writers aren’t being clear (which, of course, may be the case), or the scientists don’t know what they’re talking about (in some cases, a given).

Why the difference? My theory is that editors of newspapers and other major periodicals are not just ordinary folk. They tend to be very accomplished people. They’re used to being the smartest guys in the room. So science makes them squirm. And because they can’t bear to feel dumb, science coverage suffers.

Future 2 future

• Plans are afoot to release literary classics as condensed text messages.

Somehow I doubt this will catch on, at least with the 0.001% of the world’s population that actually enjoys reading (you know, for fun). Basically it’s just Cliffs Notes for your cell phone, which is great if you’re a hung-over college freshman trying to scrape your way through an 8am Lit-101 class. But it shouldn’t be mistaken for the real thing, and I seriously doubt it will be.

• Bryan Curtis defends college journalists at Slate.

Man, I feel old. I can remember when microfiche was the only way to find my archived newspaper articles. Curtis’ point is that with the advent of digital publishing, collegiate journalists’ sloppiness can now dog them wherever they go... and what’s wrong with that? In my experience, it’s relatively easy for a writer to spit something out, but it’s sometimes harder to get an editor to take the time to help them shape it. The common delusion is that writers operate in a total vacuum, which is not even close to the truth, but having done newspaper and magazine work in the past, I can remember being amazed that some of the crap I wrote got published in the first place. Editors have just as much responsibility as writers to make sure what hits the page is as airtight as it can be. Too much editorial slack, and you get lazy, half-assed, unsubstantiated tripe that shouldn’t even have seen the light of day in the first place... in other words, you get Jayson Blair.

Anyway.