Who needs sub-editors, anyway?

Squeezed by the recession and the internet, newspaper managements are desperate to slash costs. For many of them, the first fat to be trimmed came from editorial production departments.

What do all those sub-editors* do, anyway? The paper will still come out, and still look good, with half the subbing staff.

Well yes, but you may have to put up with this now and again:

– from the first paragraph of the Sydney Sun-Herald's
front-page lead this morning (in my edition, at least).

* Copy editors in America.

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