Who's Ranks: Editor, or Managing Editor?

[Jinx]

Just wondering who is the top dog at a newspaper when given the choice of Editor vs Managing Editor? - Jinx

[LilShieste]

Assuming by "Editor", you mean, "Editor-in-Chief", then they are the top dog of the newspaper. From what I have seen, the Managing Editor is basically the person who "runs" things, but the EIC has the final say in the matters.


LilShieste

[ZipperJJ]

The managing editor interacts with the staff while the EIC sits in his/her office all day and occasionally goes to Meetings With Important People. If anything goes wrong (lawsuits, misprints, etc), however, it's the EIC who gets in trouble.

This is a generalization based on my 5 years in journalism school with an active student newspaper.

[kunilou]

The managing editor does things like figure out that a story is too long for the space available.

The editor gets to decide which story goes on page 1.

[Jinx]

OK, so when submitting a proposal for a column...to whom is it best to address? - Jinx

[Jplacer]

At the newspaper I work at, I am a copy editor. I write headlines and design pages.

My boss is the News Editor. She oversees the copy editors.

On the reporting side, the City Editor is in charge of the reporters.

The next level is the Managing Editor. He does a lot of paperwork, runs story budget meetings and generaly decides what goes on page 1.

We also have an Executive Editor. He is the big dog. He oversees the whole newsroom and he handles the money aspect of the newsroom. For example, if a reporter needed to go to Hawaii to cover a story, the executive editor would have to approve the trip. The Executive editor also has the final say on hirings.

If you are going to submit a proposal for a column, I suggest contacting the City Editor.

[Hilarity N. Suze]

I would second what Jplacer said: send column ideas to the city editor, if there is one. But if not, send it to the ME.

I worked as an ME for several weekly newspapers and one magazine (not all at once). The writers reported to the editor as far as what they wrote and to me as far as when they got it in; I was in charge of laying out pages, copy editing, headlines, and overall production (which was done, basically by one guy, using Quark--I had to learn it but never really used it) and getting the thing to the printer every week. I sat in on editorial meetings, but the editor was in charge. The editor was also the official schmoozer. Basically at a small newspaper everybody did proofreading, wrote stories, and generated ideas for other stories. But I also had a lot of input as to what went in the paper, for instance I could pull a story if I thought it wasn't good enough, or suggest a new column somebody sent in.

[TV time]

Quite probably a sorter in the mail room will send it on to the right desk anyway which will probably be the OpEd desk. So just address it to the editor. It will get there.

TV

[j.c.]

Why don't you call the receptionist and ask what you should do? That's the general rule for finding out who needs to get a resume when you have no other resources.