Take a tour of The Sun's subs room

If you are a beleaguered sub-editor, wondering if your days are numbered, then this is a must listen. It's the BBC's Word of Mouth tour of the Sun's subs room with managing editor Graham Dudman. He describes the subs as "the craftsmen of the English language who make The Sun what it is." Chief reporter John Kay says the reporters are "the foot-soldiers of the paper and what we produce are the nuggets of facts which our wonderful sub-editors then mould into this fantastic peerless prose which appears every morning." He goes on to say that, how ever well reporters think they have written their stories, "our wonderful sub-editors always find a way to improve them". He admits: "I hate to say it but every occasion that they have re-written one of my stories, which fortunately doesn't happen too often, it has always been improved." Great to hear. It is also good to hear subs talking about the importance of rhythm, pace, creativity, turning pictures into words and writing headlines from left field. We ran the subbing training scheme for The Sun and one of our former trainees, Fran Wetzel, talks about her experiences too. There are some classic Sun headlines in the programme. Many you will recognise, but I hadn't heard this one by sub Elaine Roberts before: A prize bull that dies and its sperm is frozen for future breeding. The headline: Pushing up Daisies.

As I have said before, it is not coincidence that the two most successful daily papers in the country, The Sun and the Daily Mail, remain committed to the craft of subbing. Graham emailed the link to me to say: "If I was running a subbing course, I’d be tempted to make it required listening!" Couldn't agree more ...  

Mail subs off to the regions

On their way: trainee subs Ben Winstanley, Jennie Agg, Anna Croall

 (back row) Dawn Wheatley, Fiona Roberts and Alex Richman (front). Picture by Andy Drinkwater 

We said goodbye to the six trainee subs from the Daily Mail today. After four weeks' training in Howden and three days in London, they now head off for placements at the Press Association, The Evening Standard, The Irish News, Stoke Sentinel, Hull Daily Mail and News and Star in Carlisle. All being well, they will end up on the Mail subs desk next year. It has been an enjoyable few weeks. The trainees, all very talented, have been learning the craft of sub-editing to national newspaper standard. Pronouns, apostrophes, stylebooks, structure, accuracy, intros, captions, tight-editing, news values, headlines, layout, picture manipulation and cropping, graphics, InDesign, Photoshop and much more have been on the agenda. It is the eighth consecutive year that the Mail has recruited and trained its own subs in this way. The Sun has also run similar courses. It clearly works. So while the rest of the industry is jettisoning sub-editors in the name of economy and efficiency, the daily papers that sell the most continue to invest in them. Coincidence? I don't think so.

... and trainee subs

For the last seven years the Daily Mail has recruited trainee subs, sent them to me and my colleagues at Press Association Training, for five weeks intensive subbing training followed by a secondment to a big regional newspaper. If they make the grade, which the vast majority do, they land a sub's job at Northcliffe House. The scheme is running again this year and the Mail is recruiting now. The advert was in The Guardian on Monday Mail training scheme. The closing date is March 5. The reporters training scheme, which began two years ago, is also running again. 
Details soon.