How edits happen at Daily Arts:
A piece travels from…
the Writer who writes it → the Beat Editor for higher level edits (edits the content, argument, structure, organization, flow) → the SAE for style guide edits → Back to the Writer for edits and revisions → back to the Beat editor for a final read before being sent to Production.
Before production, Beat and Senior Arts Editors should be making higher order edits. This is when you should be alerted that a paragraph needs to be deleted or moved, a sentence is too wordy, or that the article is lacking in substance and/or an argument.
At Production:
Day 1:
The Beat Editor on duty does a pass for readability and minor edits → the SAE edits for style guide things, adding links, finding a cover. If there are major issues or changes that need to be made, the piece should be sent back to the writer for changes to be addressed before 4pm the next day.
Day 2:
The MAE on duty does a quick pass → Copy for copy edits → the Daily ME or EIC does a final read before sending it back to the MAE for publication on the site.
At production, the piece is assumed to be publication worthy and the following passes are intended to catch smaller, more minor issues. If, on day 1, editors find themselves making more substantial edits than minor, grammatical, rephrasing corrections etc. the piece should be copied onto a google doc with comments made and then sent back to the writer.
Overall, a single piece is going to be read and edited by seven/eight different people before publication.
These editors are overall editing for:
- Readability and concision
- Originality / is the piece interesting?
- Style guide things: Grammar, spelling, deleting oxford commas, etc.
However, it is not uncommon for a writer to find that the final published version of their article may differ from their original piece. It's part of the process. It happens at larger papers and also at the Daily.
Unfortunately, pieces cannot be edited after publication unless they are factually or grammatically incorrect.