Finding your inner copy editor -- and staying cool

Katie Oyan

By Katie Oyan
1997 and Spring 2000 Scholar

Posted: Feb. 1, 2002

My name is Katie Oyan, and I am a copy editor.

I'm a copy editor, I'm a copy editor, I'm a copy editor.

There. After five long years, I'm finally able to admit it.

Five years of taking notes when I should have been crafting headlines. Five years of running to crime scenes when I should have been fixing run-on sentences.

Five years of "My name is Katie Oyan, and I'm a reporter."

Talk about your identity crisis.

Source: "The mayor just hung himself in the middle of a council meeting!"

Me: "Don't you mean hanged?"

All right, that might be an exaggeration. But my point is that instead of whispering "report," my instincts yell "EDIT!"

So why did it take me so long to come to terms with that?

Mix a pinch of arrogance with a handful of ignorance, and you might find the answer.

My love of the English language nudged me into journalism, but I chose reporting for the same reason I once wore big bangs and leg-warmers.

Yep, it was a coolness thing.

For whatever reason, I always have been under the impression that the people out there asking the questions were the guts and the glory of the industry.

I thought that in the newspaper game, reporters were the quarterbacks and copy editors warmed the bench.

I thought reporters were to Batman as copy editors were to Robin.

In the rock concert in my head, the reporter was the lead singer and the copy editors the backup singers mumbling their oohs and aahs from the dim part of the stage.

And since I'm definitely not a sidekick or backup-singer type, I must be a reporter, right?

Thank goodness for the Contra Costa Times.

The past year of working my first full-time reporting job was like a crash course in Coolness 101:

Cool is when a copy editor swoops in and saves Joey Reporter's hide when his lead reads like a forklift instruction manual.

Cool is a headline that ropes readers like the Lone Ranger ropes bad guys.

Cool is getting to wear jeans to work every day.

Cool is figuring out what you're good at and doing it.

I know now that I'd rather fix sentences than create them -- and that's fine with me. I'm a copy editor.

On second thought, I'm not a just a copy editor.

I'm Joe Montana, Diana Ross and Batman wrapped up in one.

I am cool.

Katie Oyan is a copy editor at the Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune and an ASNE/APME Fellow. She was a Scholar at the Tribune and the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, Calif. She wrote this essay while interning at the Tribune. Reach her at katieoyan@hotmail.com.

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