Counsel for the Written Word
The Anachronistic Nature of Editorial Work
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In debates over the digital revolution or the “new structural change of the public sphere”, concrete editorial work hardly plays any role, although it essentially decides the quality of newspapers and magazines and thus shapes the general public. The reason for this omission may be that the core of the editorial business – the work editors perform on texts – has changed less dramatically over the decades than distribution channels or reader behaviour. This deliberately subjective review is meant to illustrate the profession’s most important features and why it makes sense to cultivate anachronistic-seeming editorial virtues such as presence of mind and diligence.
(Osteuropa 1-3/2025, pp. 97–108)