Survey: Mag Editing and Fact Checking Standards Slack Online

As a freelance editor and copy editor, I cringed when I saw yesterday's NY Times article on a Columbia Journalism Review survey of consumer magazines and their web practices, which found inconsistent and rather lax standards in regard to editing and fact-checking online content.

Here's the scoop straight from the article:

• Copy-editing requirements online were less stringent than those in print at 48 percent of the magazines. And 11 percent did not copy-edit online-only articles at all.
  
  
• A similar trend held with fact-checking. Although 57 percent of the magazines fact-check online submissions in the same way they fact-check print articles, 27 percent used a less-stringent process. And 8 percent did not fact-check online-only content at all. (The other 8 percent did not fact-check either print or online articles.)

As CJR chairman Victor Navasky was quoted as saying in the NYT article: “One of the things that it appears to mean is that there’s this trade-off of standards for speed. The conventional wisdom is that you have to be there first in order to get traffic, and you need traffic in order to sell ads, therefore you do not have time to do conventional copy-editing and fact-checking.”

Ouch.

Today, the PDF of the report became available on the CJR website.

A note to all those consumer magazines that are struggling to squeeze in copy-editing and fact-checking before publishing content to the Web: there are plenty of incredibly talented freelance copy editors, proofreaders, and researchers ready to lend a hand.

You may have to pay us, but trust me, our skills are worth it when it comes to delivering quality content to your readers.

Diversify, Diversify, Diversify

I keep my eyes peeled for freelance work on online job boards, through freelance writing newsletters, wherever I can find possible opportunities.

As usual, there are plenty of online writing opps out there—some worthwhile, some frighteningly underpaid and a bit shady. That's the nature of the game.

But I'm also seeing a lot more proofreading jobs than I used to. I wonder if this is partly because of the economy—more companies are handling writing in-house, but farming out proofreading to someone with fresh, experienced eyes.

Regardless of the reason, it reminds me that when writing jobs are tougher to come by and paying less than before, the freelancers who succeed often are the ones who diversify.

What services can you offer beyond your usual print or online article writing?

Proofreading and copy editing are key components of my freelance business. In fact, at certain times I find I do a lot more of this type of work than I do writing.

I realize, of course, that not everyone has the eye for detail and the grammatical skills needed to become a proofreader or copy editor. If you're interested in pursuing that type of work, however, why not take a class to bone up on your editing abilities? Now is a great time to find an online course or enroll in an editing class through community education or a local college.

The same goes for other areas. If you've dabbled in web or print design before, why not take some classes to improve your skill so you can offer basic design services along with writing? Interested in photography? Maybe now's the time to get serious about it.

I know freelancers who supplement their income by becoming prop stylists for photo shoots, creating craft projects that are featured in magazines (and sold on Etsy), and teaching at local colleges.

Get creative. What skills can you put to use?