Published September 18, 2024
I edit knowing we have more than 5 million subscribers. You can’t let that overwhelm or scare you. To some extent, while being fully aware of what’s at stake, a healthy amount of confident fearlessness is necessary for great editing.
People like to say don’t sweat the small stuff. When your job is to sweat the small stuff, it can be overwhelming. The reality is that amid deadlines, you usually have to prioritize. If your plea for help with that gets a response that “it’s all important,” you are probably taking to a manager.
You’re one human being. Some of this is small stuff. I promise.
I estimate that professionally I’ve written close to 13,000 stories for public consumption, for subscriber bases of 40,000 people, 80,000 people, 100,000-plus people and more. The stories can’t all be home runs, which I learned to grudgingly accept when I was young.
As I wrote earlier this month in reflecting on my career as a reporter and columnist: I tried to write every story so that three different people I knew could read it and get something out of it. Thank you, Preston, Sue and rotating wild-card friend. Now that I edit for a subscription base of more than 5 million, working on stories that have URLs with nytimes in them, I still consider no more than maybe a dozen actual people or so as I choose what to leave in and what to leave out. As the man sang, I’m older now but still running against the wind.
It’s okay to find ways to turn it around and have the wind at your back when you can. You are one person.
A version of this post first appeared on LinkedIn. Editing tips here are mine unless noted.
Photo of laptop and coffee by Vitalii Matokha via Shutterstock.