In cyberspace, no one can hear the editor scream

It’s all about the process, or its tattered remnants. Word has come here to the galactic headquarters of the Mystic Order of the Perpetually Annoyed (MOPA) that the nation’s largest media-owning conglomerate is about to turn the newsroom over to the inmates — that is, citizen journalists, or in Gannett-speak, “mojos.”

Setting aside the sneaking suspicion that I may have wasted the last quarter-century learning a craft that is about to join the ranks of computer punchcard sorter or switchboard operator, I still have to ask, where’s the editor? While mobile journalists are all about snapping and zapping images onto electronic delivery devices, who’s in charge of quaint niceties like spelling, grammar, style, usage, fact-checking?

The way it’s supposed to be is explained here. Editors and copy editors perform the unsung yet invaluable service of saving writers and reporters — and the readers — from themselves, but seem to be an expendable nuisance in the new word order.

Yet even before the sharp pencils figured out they were chumps for actually paying for content — hang the quality — when there are so many eager young things just panting to participate in the newsgathering process, editors had also become page designers, which explains why most newspaper design is crap these days. And as soon as the eager young things figure out they can upload to YouTube without even token editorial restraint, who’s left for the sharp pencils to gouge?

Even if you don’t have a problem with receiving news unencumbered by the editorial process, what’s this that the ever-vigilant guardians of MOPA spy on the horizon? It’s all about text-speak becoming acceptable usage in high school English papers. ROFLOL, IMHO.

This isn’t what George Bernard Shaw was all about when he suggested “fish” should be spelled “ghoti” — was it?

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