Editing, fast and slow

TY - JOUR

T1 - Editing, fast and slow

AU - Greenberg, Susan

N1 - Dr Susan L. Greenberg is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Roehampton, following a long career as journalist and editor. She teaches and offers doctoral supervision in her specialist areas of narrative nonfiction, and publishing. Susan is also the Publisher of the department’s in-house imprint, Fincham Press.

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - I first used “slow journalism” in 2007 to describe storytelling that gives equal value to narrative and factual discovery. My contribution was original in one respect: using management theory, it evaluated slow journalism as an example of high-margin journalism at the luxury end of the market, compared to high-volume news at the other, or conventional journalism in the middle. In that sense, slow journalism can be understood as a way of beating the competition through differentiation. An awareness of markets offers an additional frame for understanding slow journalism, alongside others that emphasise its potential as a communal project. However, it is not a binary choice: the best insights arise from understanding the tension between opposites, such as financial and cultural capital (Bourdieu) or ulterior and ultimate motives (Burke). A focus on the editing of slow journalism helps to understand these tensions. It also provides a lens through which to view time. Editing, now commonly seen as an extra stage that slows textual production, first emerged as a way of speeding it up. An historical awareness of the material conditions of production can help distinguish between constraints that are specifically commercial, and those arising from a wider social production of texts.

AB - I first used “slow journalism” in 2007 to describe storytelling that gives equal value to narrative and factual discovery. My contribution was original in one respect: using management theory, it evaluated slow journalism as an example of high-margin journalism at the luxury end of the market, compared to high-volume news at the other, or conventional journalism in the middle. In that sense, slow journalism can be understood as a way of beating the competition through differentiation. An awareness of markets offers an additional frame for understanding slow journalism, alongside others that emphasise its potential as a communal project. However, it is not a binary choice: the best insights arise from understanding the tension between opposites, such as financial and cultural capital (Bourdieu) or ulterior and ultimate motives (Burke). A focus on the editing of slow journalism helps to understand these tensions. It also provides a lens through which to view time. Editing, now commonly seen as an extra stage that slows textual production, first emerged as a way of speeding it up. An historical awareness of the material conditions of production can help distinguish between constraints that are specifically commercial, and those arising from a wider social production of texts.

KW - competitive strategy, cultural capital, editing, editors, literary journalism, market differentiation, material practice, New Journalism, slow journalism

U2 - 10.1080/17512786.2015.1114898

DO - 10.1080/17512786.2015.1114898

M3 - Article

VL - 10

SP - 555

EP - 567

JO - Journalism Practice

JF - Journalism Practice

SN - 1751-2786

IS - 4

ER -