Gabrielle Munoz

Statesman copy editor Gabrielle Munoz answered the following questions from Newspapers in Education coordinator Flannery Bope.

What is your job at the Statesman?
I work on the news desk, primarily as a copy editor, but I also design pages and work as a wire editor. I often edit for the sports desk, too.

How long have you worked at the Statesman?
I started as an intern in September 2009, during my senior year of college, and joined the desk that December.

What experience do you have?
I got interested in journalism when I joined my high school newspaper staff, and that’s what drove me to major in journalism in college. I worked at UT’s newspaper, The Daily Texan, for three years and had two editing internships before coming to the Statesman. Those internships gave me firsthand experience editing at metro newspapers and really helped me decide that copy editing was something I wanted to pursue.

What hours do you work during the day?
I usually come in a little after 4 p.m. and leave around midnight.

What happens during your average work day?
I come in and get started on any early stories that have already been turned in. The metro editors and copy chiefs meet at 5:30 to plan exactly what is going in the next day’s paper (for instance, they might decide that a story that’s been planned for the metro front should be pulled to A1 instead), so after this meeting I’ll get my story assignments. The A, B and Business section chiefs assign all the stories that go on their section fronts, and all inside stories are up for grabs.

As the night goes on I’m constantly keeping an eye on the editing queue, waiting for my assigned stories to arrive and also picking up inside copy that hasn’t been assigned. I check stories for accuracy, style, spelling and grammar, as well as any news holes or facts that don’t quite add up — if a quote seems like it might be missing a word or I think a name is spelled wrong, I give the reporter a call to verify. I then write headlines, photo captions and any other display type and send the story on to my section chief for another edit.

When every story on a page has had its final edit, the page designer prints out a copy of the page for a final edit. I’ll give the page a final read to catch any last-minute mistakes. After deadline, we get early copies of the newspaper from the press room, and we’ll check one more time to make sure there aren’t any major errors. If we find something really bad, like a misspelled word in a headline, we can fix it for the final edition of the paper.

Why do you like copy editing?
I’m a word nerd, and I just love editing, fine-tuning and fixing mistakes. I get great satisfaction out of catching an error before it can make it into the paper. And the stories are always different, so I’m constantly learning new things, whether it’s a grammar rule or a fact about a foreign country.

Why did you choose copy editing over reporting?
I prefer to do the behind-the-scenes work. Some people like to do the interviews and reporting, but I’d rather take a close look at the story once all the big pieces have come together.

What traits/skills make a good copy editor?
Strong grammar and language skills, of course, and extreme attention to detail. Knowing when to ask questions is one of the most important traits — you don’t need to know everything or memorize the AP Stylebook, but you should know where you can look to find the answers.

What advice do you have for someone who might want to become a copy editor?
Read everything you can get your hands on — newspapers, books, anything — and stay on top of current events. Familiarize yourself with the AP Stylebook, and get involved with your high school and college papers.

What is the AP Stylebook and what is your favorite entry in it?
The AP Stylebook is one of our most important reference tools — it’s often referred to as the editor’s bible. It’s an A to Z guide of grammar, punctuation and style rules (for example, “senator” should be abbreviated as “Sen.” when used as a title before a name). I’m not sure if I have a favorite entry, but I enjoy all the different rules in the numerals entry, which has tons of examples on how to use numbers, from ages to votes to percentages.

What is something that most people probably don’t know about your job?
Many people don’t know that we write the headlines, photo captions and other display type that you see in the newspaper. Being a copy editor is about more than just editing.