The Editor’s Desk

It’s nomination time for awards from the American Copy Editors Society. Here’s how to enter two of the organization’s contests:

ROBINSON PRIZE: This award honors the copy editor of the year who demonstrates not only superior editing skills, but also mentoring and leadership ability. The deadline to nominate someone (or yourself) for the prize is Dec. 1, and you can do that with a handy online form.

HEADLINES: These awards go to the best headline writers in the country. There are six categories, including a student competition. Find out more about the contest at the ACES site. You can enter online this year.

Winners for all prizes will be announced at the ACES national conference in Philadelphia in April 2010. Online registration is under way, and I hope to see you there.

It’s a difficult time for the editing profession. Copy desks at newspapers are being decimated by layoffs, and more errors are getting into print and online. The cost of journalistic quality is a topic of conversation.

It’s also an important time for the American Copy Editors Society. The organization is working hard to remind publishers of the importance of editing and all that job entails, from checking facts to promoting stories on Twitter.

ACES is interested in working with journalists who seek editing skills even though their job title isn’t “copy editor.” The organization is also looking to reach out to copy editors in fields besides newspapers.

To those ends, the Executive Committee of ACES has launched a blog to better communicate the organization’s direction. In the blog’s initial post, ACES President Chris Wienandt put it this way:

We’re determined to better engage you — in what’s happening in the organization, in copy editing, in companies and institutions around the country where copy editing is happening. This blog, we hope, will become a conversation between ACES’ members and its board.

As a board member, I am one of the contributors to the new blog. I hope you will visit there and offer your comments. We’re here to serve you and the editing profession that we love.

The annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, which will take place this year in Boston, brings together about 2,000 journalism professors and media professionals. Editing has a prominent place on this year’s agenda, notably in these three events:

The Future of Editing. An afternoon of sessions on Tuesday, Aug. 4, will look at the state of editing and where it’s going. Chris Wienandt, president of the American Copy Editors Society, will be among the panelists.

Great Ideas for Teachers. This annual contest is a great place to pick up some new teaching ideas. Some of this year’s 25 winners have an editing angle; they will be on display on the afternoon of Wednesday, Aug. 5.

Breakfast of Editing Champions. Faculty members and newsroom editors will get together at this session on Thursday, Aug. 6. We’ll swap teaching ideas and discuss what is happening in the field and what’s to come.

I’m playing a role in each of these events, and I hope to see you there.

GoodSearch is a search engine that donates 50 percent of its advertising revenues to charities designated by its users. It works like any other search engine, with Yahoo providing the results.

The American Copy Editors Society is raising money for its education fund using the site and its companion, GoodShop. That fund supports scholarships to students who are interested in careers in editing.

“Every time you use GoodSearch, the fund will get about a penny,” says Chris Wienandt, president of ACES. “If all 635 ACES members used the service to conduct an average of two searches a day (how hard is that for a copy editor?), the fund would earn about $3,300 a year.”

Next time you need to search for something online, consider using Goodsearch and selecting ACES as the recipient. Thank you for your support.

The 13th annual conference of the American Copy Editors Society is over. By all accounts, the meeting in Minneapolis was a remarkable success, with more than (over?) 250 people in attendance and an upbeat outlook that had been missing in recent years.

The conference also had a curious blend of old and new media. On the “old” side, it came to light that print advertising in local newspapers brought in many Minnesotans who had not previously heard about the conference. These were freelance editors as well as editors for local companies. Who knew that print advertising could have such an effect?

On the “new” side, the ACES site became a hub of social media. Blog posts recapping the sessions got comments, both from people at the conference and those who couldn’t be there. The Twitter feed picked up steam throughout the conference — again, from those in attendance and those following the fun elsewhere. Flickr allowed us to document the people and events of the gathering. And posting handouts online lets those of us who could not attend every session catch up on what we missed.

The mix of print and online represents the range of ingenuity and talent on display at the ACES conference. We are truly a multimedia organization.

Thanks to all for their efforts in pressing ahead in tough times and making the Minneapolis meeting a success. On to Philadelphia for the 2010 conference!

This blog will be quiet this week as I give and grade final exams. Then I head off to Minneapolis for the national conference of the American Copy Editors Society.

If you can’t join us at the conference, follow the fun at the ACES site and on Twitter.

The national conference of the American Copy Editors Society is just two weeks away. We’ll meet in Minneapolis from April 30 to May 2.

If you haven’t registered yet, you still can for the bargain rate of $175. That gives you access to sessions on topics such as editing for online, using Twitter, going into teaching and writing better cutlines.

You also get to witness the editing smackdown between Bill Walsh of The Washington Post and Merrill Perlman, formerly of The New York Times. That alone will be worth the price of admission.

I hope to see you there.

• Ryan Teague Beckwith of Under the Dome, on a corny cliche that’s popping up a lot in North Carolina’s state government.

• Jann Nyffeler of the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, on the value of the national conference of the American Copy Editors Society.

• Caulton Tudor of The News & Observer, on some fun names in the NCAA Tournament, including Chief Kickingstallionsims of Alabama State.

Saturday, March 14. That is the deadline for early registration for the national conference of the American Copy Editors Society.

You may still register after that, of course, but it will cost more.

UPDATE: The early bird rate is good anytime — even if you register at the door. That’s $175 for the conference, assuming that you are an ACES member.

The conference will take place April 30-May 2 in Minneapolis. Read all about it at the ACES site.

If you are on Twitter, you can follow ACES, which is @copyeditors. You may follow the conference by following @aces2009.

I hope to see you in Minneapolis and online.

A first draft of the agenda for the 2009 national conference of the American Copy Editors Society is now available. The program includes some classics such as “The Rules That Aren’t” along with some new sessions on blogging and Twitter.

The conference will take place April 30 to May 2 in Minneapolis. Early registration ends Feb. 28. (UPDATE: This has been extended to March 14.)

With budgets for training and travel at zero at most newspapers and magazines, many people will have to pay their own way to the confernence this year. Luckily, air fares to Minneapolis are pretty cheap, and the conference fee itself compares favorably with the annual meetings of similar organizations. In other words, it will be worth it.

Find out more about the conference at the ACES site. I hope to see you in Minneapolis.