Job: Role & Responsibilities of an Editor (Online)

Since I have been working as an editor at CE for a last few years, I thought we will make a collection of what exactly does a job of an editor include here.
1. Cross checking the facts, spellings, grammar, writing style, design pages, photos etc. is the final responsibility of an editor in chief. The final accountability is that of an editor in chief.

2. It is the responsibility of the editor-in-chief to reject a piece of writing that either appears to be plagiarized or ghost written by another sub-editor or has been published before elsewhere.

3. An editor in chief is required to make light as well as heavy edits to the content in question.
Light edits -> work that does not require making substantial theme changes, structure changes and writing style changes.
When all of these require some heavy attention -> the editing is called heavy editing.

4. An editor in chief may be required to contribute editorial pieces in the publication industry.

5. The publication's standards of performance depend heavily on its editor in chief.

6. An editor in chief is required to motivate and develop the staff under him on an occasional basis. Often, editor in chief responsibilities are seen to expand to the operational and strategic planning of the organization as well.

7. It is necessary for the editor in chief to conduct editorial team meeting on regular basis, which will keep the team members updated. Assigning responsibilities to all team members and ensuring that they are completed on time is one of the major responsibilities of an editor-in-chief.

8. Editor in chief is also required to handle reader's complaints and explain and account for them.

9. It is the editor in chief's responsibility to cross-check all citations and examine all the references provided in the content

10. A technical editor in chief has the added responsibility to check the technical soundness and technical quality of the content. For this, he is required to have the technical skills in the related field or product.
Via: Buzzle.com
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I feel these are the 10 most important things an editor has to do. But I want to invite more suggestions, opinions and comments about what an editor should do.
*Please comment below* Posted in: #Coffee Room

Catching the copy-paste work; especially working with Indian authors is the #1 job any editor has to do. I often wonder why Indian authors can't product original content.

In the initial days, I thought editing was only supposed to be about correcting the English errors and making sense out of the article. But after being in it for long, now I know it means so much more.

What are the improvements that an Editor can bring to his/her content so that the outcome is termed excellent?

Smriti Jha Swagatam M Punch_a_Tantra Issue Pensu Abhishek Swain
You guys can add some comments here.

I am writing this for whole team. An Editor for me is actually the whole team where everyone has to co-ordinate each other's activities. However let us consider the leader of the editorial team as "Editor".

1. An Editor's job is hectic. It is because, he/ she is doing the same job as others PLUS he/ she is monitoring colleagues as well. It is when the things go so frustrating that editor wants to say-


2. The most irritating part is catching grammatical mistakes. I accept that our grammar knowledge is a bit low. Let us blame it on English not being 100% correct as Sanskrit 😉. However we cannot back out from our responsibility of serving correct and understandable content to our readers. Hence every author has to double check the spellings and read aloud what you have just written.



3. To the team: Do not take Editor for granted. Always read between the lines. Editor is not there for checking each and ever word you wrote. Nor is Editor your boss. You are solely responsible for what you type. When you do anything, you are yourself the Editor. Never say this-


4. Never sensationalize a news. Do not become something like *typical Indian media*. While reporting a news.




5. While Reporting a news-

a. Be the first.
b. Constantly remain updated about current happenings in your chosen field of reporting.
c. History is also important.
b. Increase your contacts.

6. News can also be written for providing solutions to a particular problem. Like there is a virus out there and you know what is the possible solution. Direct your readers to the solution. This can only be done in case of technical blogs.

7. Always Experiment.

This is for Editor and for AbraKaDabra in particular. Our job should be priority no matter what people say about us.

Issue Well said. Good points. I am waiting for responses from all others too.

AbraKaDabra

A technical editor in chief has the added responsibility to check the technical soundness and technical quality of the content. For this, he is required to have the technical skills in the related field or product.

Not only the editor, I feel that a sound technical know-how will also help the author to better his content. Also, meeting the deadlines is top priority for any news site to ensure that they get the optimum page views! Being an editor indeed is tedious, and we authors as a unit will try to reduce this load as much as possible! 😀

Punch_a_Tantra

Not only the editor, I feel that a sound technical know-how will also help the author to better his content. Also, meeting the deadlines is top priority for any news site to ensure that they get the optimum page views! Being an editor indeed is tedious, and we authors as a unit will try to reduce this load as much as possible! 😀

and here's my friend Popeye. Short and simple message! 👍

An editor-in-chief should also be prepared to direct the authors to more information when it is applicable.
He/she should check the content for accuracy and also for redundancies and verbosity.

Good points everyone. I am jotting down some. Keep them coming.