As usual, I’ve had some copy sent to me, with the claim that “It’s already been approved and so won’t need changing.”
Yeah, approved by some head-in-the-glass-ceiling manager who can’t walk five paces without tripping over hir words and has neither the Comms experience or interest to consider how the reader will understand the words used.
Tsk.
To make matters worse, once I have improved the writing (you knew I would didn’t you?), they ‘push back’ as we say round here, and tell me that the article is fine as it was. No it isn’t. Let me repeat that: No it isn’t. It isn’t fine because I’m paid a lot of money to decide what is fine and what isn’t, so, the buck stops with me, and this buck ain’t goin’ no where no how.
It takes me 5 Versions (that’s OK) with full explanations of my changes (that’s not OK) to get the original authors to agree with me.
“You’ve removed the very last sentence; it was a nice ending note that tied the article togther.” Said they.
“No, it looked like it was cut n pasted from a Sales Brochure and looks cheap and glib; our global audience won’t buy it, and it will reduce their trust in Corporate communications; I’m cutting it.” Said I.
My advice to everyone who argues about the ‘difficulty’ of going through the review cycle, and how I’m slowing down the schedule with my editing needs is: Get the Corp Comms involved at an early stage of development so we may help you craft a great news article for the staff to read. Don’t hand us copy believing that we’ll publish it; we won’t unless it is excellent.
And as Editor, I’ll be the judge of that.
