Not so blind ambition

Right, like I’m going to tell you “what it’s like” working for The Daily Gamecock.
The beauty of this newspaper is that while everybody contributes to it, I wouldn’t say anybody works FOR it -- we work TOWARD it.
There are certain style rules that are to be followed when writing headlines, but at no point does somebody see a thought in progress and stifle it because of some corporate master. There’s plenty of room to breathe at The Daily Gamecock (pre-deadline), and headlines are ideally the crowns of the copy editors’ efforts. Oh sure, with enough attention to detail anybody can tighten a story’s grammar and shepherd all of the spellings inside the AP Corral. But topping all that off with a five-word (give or take) statement that’s both informative and witty brings a certain sense of achievement …
… that has yet to be delivered. I’ll get back to you when that perfect headline gets nailed.
The Viewpoints section allows any opinion on its page, so long as it’s long enough and qualifies as an opinion. Several of the copy editors here edited enough stories in the first semester to feel compelled to write material later on, myself included. Combined with copy editing, some staffers can follow a story from conception to editing to trimming it on the page. Then a year goes by and the copy editor winds up on the editorial staff, backed up by a new crop of fresh faces.
The process is much like a relay race, with the staff passing its rolled-up newspaper of a baton at different intervals, with different runners tripping or sprinting at various intervals. What we share in common is a desire to make a solid newspaper worth reading that transcends whatever differences in method between us. The record time in this performance race isn’t set in stone until every person on campus is curious for the next issue.
And should we ever reach that perfect performance, we’ll charge a dime per copy and become millionaires overnight.

-- Copy desk
Thomas Maluck
Copy editor/columnist/critic