When one becomes part of an institution as large and venerable as the Time-Life empire, a great deal of tradition and established procedure must be mastered. Along with learning my role in the operation, I also learned much about how editorial decisions are made, factors that affect what goes on the cover, the way Time's network of foreign correspondents is used, the value of research, and the interplay between powerful editors and powerful writers.
At smaller publications, such as MIS Week, a copy editor gets to do some of everything: write headlines and captions, select and crop photos, design pages, cut stories to fit, and even write articles. At an organization as large as Time's, everything is specialized, and copy editors basically do nothing but copy editing (and some proofreading). However, this specialization, combined with a large staff and a leisurely weekly deadline (as opposed to a daily deadline) allows copy editors to devote a great amount of attention to detail.
The staffs of all the Time Inc. magazines (Time, Fortune, People, Money, Sports Illustrated, etc.) were separate, although most of them had offices in the Time-Life Building in Rockefeller Center. Time's copy desk consisted of about 20 people, many of them part-time. Mine was a full-time position.
While I was at Time, all articles were copy edited first in electronic form on the Atex editing system. The copy desk then transmitted articles to production, where they were coded for typesetting. Page proofs were printed out and sent back to copy editing, where each proof received two cold reads. Marked proofs were returned to production, where the corrections were set; corrected proofs were sent back to copy editing for checking.
Time published a number of different foreign editions (all in English). The copy desk edited all the articles that appeared in all editions of the magazine.
In addition to articles, the copy desk edited all charts, graphs, and graphics with text elements. Substantial fact-checking became part of the job during my last year at Time. Despite that, and the necessity to read proofs, on-screen copy editing made up most of the job.
A single copy editor, in most cases, was responsible for all the copy editing on an article. Sometimes (especially for cover stories) that copy editor would spend an hour or more on the phone with the writer of the story or, in some instances, with the editor. This was one of the great luxuries of working on a weekly publication: given the time, a copy editor can sew up every hole in a story.
Full-time Time copy editors worked a three-day (35-hour) week. The magazine closed Sunday to appear on newsstands Monday, so a typical work week was Thursday, Friday, Saturday. A few copy editors had day shifts, but many people worked 2 p.m. - 3 a.m. Thursday and 4 p.m. - 5 a.m. Friday. Saturday shifts varied widely; I was one of the copy editors responsible for closing the edition, so my Saturday shift was 4 p.m. - 4 a.m.