The Yang Slinger: Vol. XI
There are good editors, great editors, bad editors, awful editors: The key to surviving as a journalist—learn to deal with all types. Plus, five Qs with Susan Orlean and my huge college screw-up.
On the night of Dec. 31, 1992, a couple of friends and I trudged out to Times Square to watch the ball drop.
If you’ve never done such a thing—well, you should. It’s an oddly fun event, filled with drunk people, drunker people and the children of drunk people (who just want to go home). It’s a celebration of life; of survival; of turning the page and somehow uncovering a fresh start. It’s the land of 1,000 shades of vomit; of hookups between moths and elephants; of loud music and dumb jokes and enriched pretzel vendors.
It’s also a tremendous place for a journalist.
That’s why, nearly 30 years ago, I was on the scene. As an editor at The Review, the University of Delaware’s student newspaper, I thought it’d be cool to roam through the frigid streets of the Big Apple and write a first-person account of Dick Clark’s favorite tradition. So, armed with a notepad and pen, I jotted down observations, conducted a few interviews, drank very little, stole a mug from a bar1 and probably paid $35 for a hamburger and fries.
Then I went home, slept off the fairy dust and woke up the following morning to write a piece headlined, NEW YEAR’S IN THE BIG APPLE.
All it needed was a quick edit.
That’s all it needed.
Just a quick edit.
A small nip and tuck.
A few words here.
A few words there.
Um …
Ah …
Eh …
The story was massacred. Absolutely massacred. What I thought to be a brilliant, Pulitzer-worthy submission was transformed into mucus. The jokes were gone. The peppiness was assassinated. There was nothing about the ready-to-be-printed article that I felt even slightly good about.
So … I took action.
Back in the day, we used to have this thing called paste-up, where the newspaper would be laid out on large cardboard flats and one could use an exacto knife to add, subtract, cut words. In case this sounds confusing, you’d literally remove a phrase, print out a new phrase, apply a dollop of glue and paste it onto the board. Ultimately the boards would be shipped out to the printing press, and seven hours later an actual newspaper was ready to be ignored by the masses.
Anyhow, a few hours before the boards were scheduled to be sent away, I snuck into the office with an exacto knife, removed my byline and replaced it with KAREN LEVINSON—the editor of the story.
This is what appeared in the paper …
I still remember Karen’s reaction, because it involved her throwing a chair across the office, grunting like a body snatcher (Donald Sutherland, circa 1978) merged with a wild boar and demanding I be terminated.
All actions/impulses were correct.
I was an asshole. A. Because (in hindsight) I’m sure the story I wrote sucked. B. Because what sort of creep swaps a byline? C. Because what sort of creep treats an editor as such?
But that was me—and the aftermath was my first real lesson in the repercussions of writer-editor relations. I wound up being demoted, losing some of my salary (yes, we were paid) and feeling/looking like an absolute buffoon. Karen Levinson was a 21-year-old student newspaper editor. She was trying her best, and I took a huge dump all over those efforts.
Little did I know, it was only the beginning of these battles.
There’s an old joke that’s made its way through the journalism world. A writer and an editor are walking through the desert. They’re broiling and exhausted and near death’s grasp. Suddenly, the two spot a lake in the distance. As they get closer, it’s obvious this is no mirage. Upon reaching the body of water they dance for joy, and the writer bends over, cups his hands and prepares to take that glorious first sip.
“Wait!” the editor yells. “Wait! Wait!”
He pulls down his pants, stands over the lake and urinates into it.
“Now,” he says, “it’s perfect.”
I first heard that one when I was a writer at Sports Illustrated, and it was likely accompanied by a pronounced sigh. During my time at the magazine (1996-2003), you could not have something appear in print without—at bare minimum—five different editors going through your copy. That means five people (whose paychecks were dependent upon markups and changes) scanned your precious work determined to mark up and change. It’s hard to put into words the pure awfulness of such an arrangement. These were (with very rare exception) older white men whose Ivy League backgrounds gave off a scent of skunk-like elitism I have (happily) never again encountered. They liked to tell stories of the supper club glory days; of Bill Bradley scoring buckets at Princeton and ol’ Ray Hornblower scampering for touchdowns as a member of the 1968 Harvad Crimson. They listened to Sinatra and drank martinis extra dry. They also, ahem, edited in the stylings of a bunch of cranks.
With exceptions applied to Sports Illustrated’s superduperstars (Gary Smith, Rick Reilly, William Nack), the one-size-fits-all editing process resulted in the vast majority of writers sounding almost identical. So while Leigh Montville had his style and Phil Taylor had his style and Ed Hinton had his style and Richard Hoffer had his style, 99 of 100 quirks, pips, yips, jolts, spices, jukes, twists, turns and slants (those individual devices that make pieces special) were destroyed with a single strikethrough—just like this.
To be clear, I’m not exaggerating. Once, a few years prior to my arrival, a writer began his article with the lede, “Picture yourself in a boat on a river.” This, of course, is how the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” kicks off. According to SI lore (and confirmed to me by several colleagues), an editor read the sentence, broke out his turbo-charged red pen and changed it to, “Imagine yourself on a TK boat on the TK body of water.”2
In my time at the magazine I had an editor insist (passionately) that Mets’ outfielder Derek Bell was listening to “hip-hip” music, not ”hip-hop” music. I also had an editor insert a type of cheese into one of my articles for no logical reason to speak of. The athlete I had profiled was a Reds outfielder with no stated interest in dairy. Hell, I didn’t even know the added word was a type of cheese. Which led to this awkward conversation with a roommate:
Roommate: “Jeff, what’s Milbenkase?”
Me: “How the fuck would I know?”
Roommate: “It’s in your story.”
That’s pretty much the way it went at Sports Illustrated—a magazine famous for its writing; a magazine that, behind the scenes, belonged to the editors.
However …
There’s no better learning experience than swimming through life’s outhouse tanks. And if I’ve picked up anything throughout the course of my career (first at The Tennessean, then SI, Newsday, ESPN.com, Yahoo.com, The Athletic, a ton of freelance and nine-going-on-10 books), it’s how to deal/live/survive with editors.
Which, of course, is easier said than done.
Lesson No. 1: Overdo it
During the early days of my professional career, I liked cursing in articles.
I can’t explain the thinking behind it, other than I was a monumental asshole who enjoyed testing his editor. Which, in hindsight, bothers me very much, because my editor was a man named Patrick Connolly, who remains the kindest person on the planet.
Anyhow, I was a 22-year-old punk who thought he was the shit poop, and Patrick was a soft-spoken, introspective veteran in his mid-30s just trying to do his job (Tennessean assistant features editor) before heading home to his wife and three young children.
In other words, he was the enemy.
Early on in our relationship, I noticed that Patrick would eradicate any and all curses from my copy. No matter the cuss, survival was impossible.
Shit.
Fuck.
Dick.
Ass.
Whore.
Cunt.
Fucker.
Motherfucker.
None made ink.
So instead of one occasional curse per story, I’d try two. Then three. Then four. If someone cursed in a quote, I’d keep it. If a sign read SHIT TOWN, I’d stick with SHIT TOWN. If, say, a police officer referred to a suspect as a “no-good motherfucker who can go fuck himself,” I’d literally write, “no-good motherfucker who can go fuck himself.”
Before long, I noticed a pattern. If I placed one curse in a story, it’d die. If I placed two, both would usually also die. If I placed three, one would last. If it included five or six, two might make it. I can still hear Patrick’s pained voice, “I dunno—maybe this can stay if it’s in context.” And, yeah, it’d be “s-it,” not “shit.” But a win was a win was a win ...
Now, was I an immature motherfuckerf—er goober? Yes. But the lesson stuck with me. What I learned was, if you’re devoted to a type of writing or a device, use it multiple times. The editor will think they’re being nice by keeping one (“Look, Jeff, I know this matters to you, so …”), and you’ll know you scored the victory.
Lesson No. 2: Make the editor feel smart
This should probably be No. 1, because it’s incredibly important.
Like writers, editors have big egos. Oftentimes huge egos. Only, unlike us, they receive none of the glory. So while the writer is told how brilliant he is, the editor has to listen from afar, thinking, “Fuck, I did 80 percent of the work” while slamming his head into a concrete slab. “Bad editors tend to be dumb editors,” T.J. Quinn, ESPN’s brilliant reporter, told me. “So the trick in any dispute was to make him or her think something was his or her idea. It was like working a source.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Making your editor feel smart is both a kind thing to do, and an incredibly important tool in writer happiness.
Lines I’ve dusted off …
• “Hey, your [FILL IN THE BLANK] suggestion was really terrific.”
• “You know, [FILL IN THE BLANK] was a fantastic idea.”
• “I was thinking about what you said about [FILL IN THE BLANK], and I’m definitely gonna try that.”
• “Please don’t tell [FILL IN THE BLANK], but you’re the best line editor here.”
Now, to be 100-percent clear, I am not suggesting you lie. I actually can’t remember a time I deliberately lied to an editor (though I’m sure it’s happened). It’s more, eh, a soothing session. Or finding a tiny bright sliver and cobbling it into the sun. Like, your editor’s suggestion might have been, “eat more salmon.” His idea could have been relocating a comma. The thing he said was, “Listen to Adele while writing. It helps me.” Nothing earth-shaking or story changing.
But when editors feel heard by writers, they see the editing process as more of a team matter. And that’s far better for you (the writer) than Mr. Slasher going on a solo hunt of death and destruction through your copy.
Lesson 3: Pick your spots
This is one I wish I’d learned far earlier in my career, because it can save a person from years upon years of anger/anxiety.
Pick. Your. Spots.
For the young writer, every word matters. Every paragraph is X sentences for a reason. Every period sings, every comma leaps, every transition is a Gregory Hines pirouette. That’s certainly how I used to think, and I wound up devoting far too much time to fighting every … single … edit … in … every … single story.
I’ve worked alongside several writers who did/do this, and—without exaggeration—it contributed to the ruination of their careers. Editors (rightly) don’t want to waste seven hours of their days debating small alterations. So while you (the writer) might win some of the battles by sheer force of will, you ultimately render youself someone nobody wants to work with. “It’s OK to be firm,” said B.J. Schecter, my former SI colleague and a longtime writer/editor, “but not argumentative. Pick your battles. Know when to ask for help.”
I’m not sure when, precisely, my attitude changed, but at some point I realized three things that made me a far better writer to work with:
• 1. Cliche be damned, today’s copy really is tomorrow’s fish wrap, and no matter how important I think certain words might be—they’re rarely that important.
• 2. Readers never, ever, ever notice this shit. Seriously—never. Like, I’ve had stories that editors ruined. It was good, it was edited, it was dogshit. Only … readers still complimented the work. “Loved that article about …” and “Man, that piece on X was brilliant …” After enough of those experiences, I came to realize that maybe, just maybe, I was overrating my splendor.
• 3. At best, I’ve got 100 years on earth. At absoloute best. How many days do I want to devote to arguing whether Milbenkase is a preferred cheese reference over Lichen? Answer: As few as possible.
Pick your spots.
Trust me.
Lesson 4: Submit quality material
A few hours ago I was texting with Tyler Kepner, the New York Times’ terrific baseball writer. I asked whether he had a tip for surviving editors. His advice was simultaneouly simple and brilliant.
Wrote Tyler: “I try to avoid dealing with editors as much as possible. I try to come up with my own ideas, always have my next couple of weeks mapped out (with flexibility, of course) and I take pride in submitting extremely clean copy.”
That last part—clean copy—cannot be overstated. While editors generally dig sparkly phrases and praise inventive ledes, what gets them (all of them) jazzed is a story that is crisp, clear, pricisely reported and free of typos. Which, of course, means you can’t always take 1,000 literary risks, or (cough, cough) overload your offering with three fucks and a douche. Sometimes the priority just needs to be (wait for it) high-level quality.
“My basic thought,” wrote Tyler, “is they have enough headaches that if I can be a reliable, low-maintenance self-starter, they can mostly leave me alone.”
And for a writer, being left alone is 1,000 pounds of gold.
Lesson 5: Accept that shit happens (and find some pennies)
Stories.
So many stories.
Back in 2002 the author Amy Bass wrote a book, “Not the Triumph but the Struggle: The 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete.” Without any level of consultation, her editor changed all of the book’s international sporting federations from French (which is how these things are written) to Spanish because the book concerned the Mexico City Olympics and eh … um … eh … eh—no good reason.
“It was insane,” Amy told me. “And then she stood by it. I had to go back through the pages, find every reference and redline it to be changed back. It stayed with me beause she was so wrong and it was so much work undoing it.”
About 15 years ago Erik Leijon freelanced a piece for Color Magazine, a since-defunct skateboarding publication. The focus was Sebastian Cowan of Arbutus Records. When the story hit print, Leijon couldn’t help but notice the spelling of two names—Sebastian Cowan and Erik Leijon—had been mangled by an editor. “I think I got paid $100,” Leijon recalled. “I just sort of shrugged.”
In 2017 George Sipple of the Detroit Free Press uncovered the news that Red Berenson, the legendary Michigan hockey coach, was retiring. “I had Berenson saying he was done an hour before UM scheduled a presser,” Sipple recalled. However, when an editor got done with the story, a line about the Free Press breaking the bombshell had been eradicated.
Sipple complained, and the editor replied with something the scribe has never forgotten. “He said, ‘It sounded like bragging,’” Sipple said. “I was incensed. Why wouldn’t we brag about breaking that story?”
When I put out an APB for crazy editor sagas, Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal came armed. He once did a piece on L.A.’s NFL stadium proposal, and an editor inserted a “blatant lie” (Vince’s words) into the text. Another time, he profiled the Newbury Park High football team, and an editor assumed the correct spelling was “New Berry” (“Making me look like a dumbass,” Vince said). But my favorite involved Jordan Farmar, a future UCLA guard who went on to a solid 10-year NBA career.
“Farmar was starting to emerge as a legit DI and NBA prospect between his high school and junior years,” Vince said. “I did a story on him. One of the editors had heard the last name as Farmer and, assuming I had spelled the name wrong changed it from Farmar to Farmer. Of course he never checked with me. The next day our executive sports editor was getting calls from readers pointing the mistake out, and he came stomping over to my desk asking/demanding me to spell out loud Jordan Farmer’s name. Which I did. Then he threw the paper on my desk saying: ‘Well that’s not how you spelled it in your story.’ I ate that one figuring it was better to eat it than look like a back stabber.”
That particular incident took place nearly two decades ago. Vince has continued to thrive in this profession because he was able to put it behind him. Which is a necessaity. Not a fun necessity. Not a gratifying necessity. But a necessity nonetheless. Do this long enough, you’ll have your issues with editors and editing. It’s a guarantee.
So you can either accept the imperfections of the trade, or you can …
“Penny the nasty fucker.”
That’s a direct quote from Candy Thomson, veteran scribe best known for her work at the Baltimore Sun. And while, pre-Candy, I didn’t actually know what it meant to penny a nasty fucker, it sounded beyond fun.
So I asked.
First, what does it mean to penny someone …
“You quietly jam pennies in the crack between the door and door frame near the hinges to prevent the door from opening,” Thomson told me. “It’s an old dormitory trick.”
Second, what happened …
“This editor was riding everyone harder than usual with picky-shit rewrites,” Thomson said. “He made two reporters cry. He was essentially keeping everyone after school to torture us. We decided to penny him in his office. He wore headphones when he edited and listened, we think, to Wagner. He also used to edit with his office door closed so that he could summon you by paging you (remember pagers?) We gathered pennies from newsroom desks, pennied him in and went to the bar next door. Maintenance had to come and take the door off its hinges.
“It’s not a horse head in a bed. But it was good for morale.”
Amen.
The Quaz Five with … Susan Orlean
Susan Orlean has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992, and is the New York Times best-selling author of seven books. Her latest, “On Animals,” dropped recently and is available here. Follow Susan on Twitter for kicks and fun.
1. Your new book, "On Animals," is truly a love story. During these messed-up times I oftentimes look at my dog Poppy and think, "I envy you." Is that weird, normal or super weird?: I think it's absolutely normal. Animals are spared the experience of dread, so I'd say we're all feeling pretty envious of them right now.
2. What's the story of the worst pet you've ever owned?: My son wanted hermit crabs, and we finally agreed to his request. They were horrible: Mean, boring, and unfortunately very attractive to our cat, who ate them all. It was a terrible experience start to finish.
3. You've been on the New Yorker staff for (gasp) 30 years. What's the key to staying in one place, journalistically?: The key is to find the right place to be. I was very fortunate to land somewhere that really suited me, and I never had the urge to stray. It's also a place that prides itself on keeping staff for the long term, which is a bit different from a lot of publications, where churning staff is pretty common.
4. From afar you seem like a very disciplined reporter/writer. How (if at all) has Internet/social media/24-hour news/etc impacted you/changed you and the ability to produce?: I think we all find ways to procrastinate, whether it's on social media or something more analog, like reading a magazine. So overall I think I'm just about as productive now as I was before the Internet became so dominant in our lives. I suspect I waste about the same amount of time now as I ever have but I just do it differently — from my desk rather than elsewhere. Come to think of it, that might even mean my breaks from work take a bit less time. I used to leave the house and go to a bookstore or out to do an errand when I was antsy. That could really eat up a lot of time. Now I can dip into Twitter and back, wasting just a few minutes, and still have the sense of taking a break.
5. Rank in order (favorite to least): Ella Fitzgerald, The Rotary, J. Cole, Robert Caro, Max Muncy, a really terrific slice of pizza, elephants, Pigpen, comfortable socks: Wow, that's tough. Ella, Robert Caro, elephants, pizza, Pigpen, comfortable socks. I don't know what The Rotary is, or who Max Muncy or J. Cole are, so I reserve judgment.
This week’s college writer you should follow on Twitter …
D.J. Cadden, Georgia Southern junior and sports editor of The George-Anne.
Here’s what I love about D.J.: He covers absoutely everything. I mean that, sans exaggeration: A-b-s-l-o-u-t-e-l-y E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Just look at this screenshot of the George-Anne sports section …
Truly, it’s the No. 1 way to get really, really, really good at this gig: You bust ass, you go from event to event and team to team, you’re the only one sitting on press row for some meaningless game between your college and another college nobody outside of a 10-mile radius cares about.
I find D.J.’s doggedness beyond inspiring, and y’all should, too.
D.J. is on Twitter here. Bravo, kid …
Yet another story of one of my myriad career fuckups …
I was the editor in chief of The Review, Delaware’s student newspaper. New issues came out twice per week—Tuesdays and Fridays.
It’s Tuesdy morning. I’ve just woken up. My roommate Paul has the newspaper in his hand. He’s laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“This headline,” he says. “Is it right?”
I look. It’s an article about a fraternity member suspected of raping a coed. The headline is, in fact, correct: PIKE BROTHER ACCUSED OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. Then, however, there’s the subhead. It’s a pull quote from the story. I typed it up in the early hours of the morning—direct from the fraternity president.
His words: “We still believe he is not guilty.”
What I typed: “We still believe he is not innocent.”
Random journalism musings for the week …
Musing 1: If you think media suppression was a problem during the Trump years (and it certainly was), check out what’s happening in Ethiopia. This, from the Addis Standard: “In its 2021 report on the global status of press freedom, the Committee to Protect Journalists ranked Ethiopia among the worst jailers of journalists in Sub-Saharan Africa after Eritrea.” It’s that bad.
Musing 2: Mediate just named Fox News’ Tucker Carlson its 2021 Most Influential in News Media — and a little (OK, large) piece of me died. Not all that long ago, being considered part of the “news media” meant, well, reporting the news. It was Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite, Peter Jennings and Sam Donaldson. It meant you were the person who offered up the news—not the person who exploited it for partisan/political gain and vast financial riches.
I suppose, in this sad time, Carlson is considered “news media.” And, yup, he’s certainly influential and followed and responsible for thousands upon thousands of Americans believing the Covid vaccines are government mind-control ploys.
But, for my money, he’s not Edward R. Murrow.
He’s Joseph Goebbels.
Musing 3: Andrew Baggarly, The Athletic’s San Francisco Giants’ beat writer, is as good as anyone in the business. And if you don’t believe me, check out this fantastic new piece on Taira Uematsu, the first Major League coach to be born and raised in Japan.
Musing 4: Really interesting points made here and here from Taj Ali, the British journalist who notes Great Britain’s media leanings toward people educted via private schools. According to a recent study from Sutton Trust (a reliable, nonpartisan source), while a mere seven percent of British are privately educated, 43 percent of the 100 most influential news editors and broadcasters and 44 percent of newspaper columnists went to private schools. That, Ali rightly argues, leads to an elitist viewpoint of information distribution. Writes Ali: “Working-class communities continue to be underrepresented and until this imbalance is addressed, our stories will never be adequately or accurately told.”
Musing 5: Dec. 20 marked the 33rd anniversary of the passing of Max Robinson—a name you should know, but likely don’t. Working for ABC World News Tonight, he became the first African American broadcast network news anchor in the history of American television. Robinson also co-founded the NABJ (National Association of Black Journalists), and was a man unafraid to speak his mind or risk his career to do what he believed was right.
This Claude Lewis piece from shortly after Robinson’s passing explains it well …
Musing 6: One thing I’ve come to love is the growing trend of funky, cool, fun, unique obituaries that celebrate a life, and often laugh at it.
Such bliss is on full display in an obit that ran recently in the Fayetteville Observer for a woman named Renay Mandel Corren, who died at 84. It was written by her son, Andy Corren—and, damn. So friggin’ great.
Here’s how it starts: “A plus-sized Jewish lady redneck died in El Paso on Saturday.”
It gets better. Read the whole thing here.
Musing 7: One of the coolest things I learned of late was that, if one attends the University of Wisconsin, there’s an opportunity to take a class taught by Bud Selig, former Major League commissioner. It’s called “Baseball and American Society since World War II,” and Phoebe Luftig, a Pearlman Family friend/Wisconsin junior, repeatedly raved about the experience. For her final project, Phoebe wrote a fantastic piece on the Colorado Silver Bullets, the mid-1990s all-women baseball team. Her money line: “The relationship between male and female athletes is separated by one thing in particular: expectation.”
Musing 8: The new Two Writers Slinging Yang podcast stars the terrific Katie Strang, the Athletic’s standout investigative writer. So many outstanding tips. Take a listen here.
Quote of the week …
“Nothing in the reporting of a nation's history could so mislead the younger generation as to represent great events in such a way that they appear to have happened as a matter of course.”
— Gustav Stresemann
It’s true. But I was 20.
TK stands for “to come”—and is a marking where a writer needs to later insert needed material.