Penny Thoughts: Editing and Censorship

Anyone who has ever published or has sought to publish something has had the experience of being at the mercy of an editor.  Essentially, it is the editor’s responsibility to make certain that there are given structural consistencies.  The material must be grammatically correct, punctually right, and substantially consistent with the publishing organization’s stated mission.  This is the editor’s job!

With it all, it is a necessity that there be a collaboration between the author and the editor.  Editors destroy the art of the author if they become blinded by the lenses of their individual political, moral, or emotional biases.  If they are, then they become no different than some banana republic tyrant.  And believe me, some editors are plainly and simply tyrants!

In this instance, Thomas Carlyle observed, “Great is journalism. Is not every able editor a ruler of the world, being the persuader of it?” (1837).  Indeed, a ruler of the world, and clearly such a ruler would be concerned with the preservation of the status quo refracted through the focus of her/his perceptive.  That editorial process is blatant censorship!

Adding to this process, H.G. Wells stated, “No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft.”  The operative word is alter, and in this instance, it implies that an editor has a predisposed position which the editor seeks to proffer, regardless of the quality of the author’s work.  Again, this is censorship.

As a case in point let us suppose an author holds position “x” and the editor holds position “y”.  We can assume that “x” and “y” are diametrically opposed.  Just how the editor exercises editorial processes will reveal the intent of the editor.  The question remains: what is the editor’s position? Bend the author’s “x” to look more like the editor’s “y”?  Or to present the author’s “x” as it stands?

Essentially, what IS the editor’s responsibility?  And that is just the question every editor must self-impose and exercise.  When it comes to novels and even some poetry, it is fair that the editor suggests amendments which further refine what the author seems to intend – more so with novels than with poetry.  But when an editor wields a form of judgment framed by the personal views of the editor, then such a process falls monumentally short of true editorial commission.

In an allegorical observation, Elbert Hubbard in 1847 declared, “An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.”  In 1964, Adlai Stevenson re-quoted this same observation.  It holds weighty implications when closely examined and harkens to Matthew 13:24-30, which deals with the wheat being separated from the chaff.  In my perspective, this is the best analogy for an editor to face up to editorial responsibility.

Having published articles, poems, and a textbook, in every instance my work was at the mercy of an editor’s view.  Some were good, some bad, but all of them held the sword which could have eviscerated my entire submitted piece. There are expectations an author has from the work of an editor.  Even with all the structural functions an editor must exercise, in the final analysis, an editor must be objective!  Of all the duties an editor must exhibit, objectivity must be at the forefront!  If that is not the case, then editorship becomes censorship.