PETER BRUCE: Reporters write the news, but subeditors make the newspaper
The process of publishing real news is mainly about people you never hear about
It is tempting to start the new year by delivering advice and judgments left, right and centre, irritating as many extremes of our body politic as possible. But there's time for that. The election is months away and we pretty much know already what the result is going to look like: ANC wins easily, the EFF ups a bit, the DA goes backwards a bit. See how easy it is to get you going. But I want to say something about journalism and journalists before the lies and hatred of the election wash over us all. It is about attention to detail and the process of making real news and real publications. Mainly it's about people you never hear about, but without whom real “journalism”, print or digital, simply can't occur. Every now and again, a publisher will send me a manuscript and ask me to write a “shout-out” for the front or back covers. To do it honestly you actually have to read the whole manuscript. Nonetheless, you write a few paragraphs and they find about six or seven words and use th...
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