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June 24, 2008 | 1:04 pm

Call me Scoop

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Gene Weingarten has a satirical column in today’s Washington Post bidding a long-due goodbye to copy editors. (“Because the job requires patience, maturity, intelligence, attention to detail, and an extremely sedentary workday, fat old Jewish ladies have often made good copyeditors.”) It’s pretty funny, and I especially enjoyed his colorful description of reporters from the “His Girl Friday” era (complete film after the jump):

Copyeditors were once an important part of the journalism process, back when journalists weren’t as educated as they are now. Back then, your typical reporter was named ‘Scoop” and he was a semi-literate cigar-smoking, fannie-pinching drunk with bad teeth in a wrinkled suit and a card that said PRESS stuck in the hat-band of his fedora, and they’d generate their stories by bribing sources, pistol-whipping people into talking, eavesdropping from inside closets, etc. A reporter was hired for cheek and muscle, not their writing skill, so you needed an extra layer of editing.

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Just a personal observation. Anytime the word ‘Jewish’ is used, especially in a negative or ridiculous connotation, substitute the word Black and see if it would fly past YOUR copy editor. As in this case ‘fat old Black ladies’. And if you are willing to risk getting stabbed or firebombed, try ‘fat old Arab ladies’.

The fact that the source is elsewhere and that the journalist has a Jewish name means nothing to me.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 6/25/08 at 10:19 pm

BP, I understand your point. The offensive nature of that statement was Weingarten’s reason for using it.

Comment by Brad A. Greenberg on 6/25/08 at 10:35 pm

Whoops, looked before I leapt. If the same thing had not happened with Dov Chrney, I would have to question my imagination. Most often this kind of thing becomes a bad habit, what the darker persuasion calls ‘institutional’.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 6/26/08 at 4:24 am

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