A 60,000-circulation newspaper without its own copy desk? It's happening in Winston-Salem

Financially squeezed newspaper chains are consolidating their operations, especially in smaller towns. Sometimes it's the press and the pressroom employees, and/or the copy desk, with one or both functions being transferred to larger papers. Folks at the Winston-Salem Journal, circulation 60,000 in a city of 215,000, never thought they would lose their copy desk. But they are, as Media General Inc. moves its copyediting to its big papers in Richmond and Tampa.

More than one of the 18 people on the desk, interviewed for a YouTube video, called the move "inconceivable." One voiced the concern that has arisen in many smaller towns, that copy editors in distant places won't catch mistakes and even make correct copy erroneous. "If you can't know that Robinhood Road is one word, and you keep putting it in the newspaper as two words, that's your credibility," Karen Parker said, citing a significant local road. "Why should anybody believe that you're right about anything else? And a newspaper runs on its credibility. Its success is its credbility, not its bottom line."

Copy editor Tom Radulovic disputed Media General's assertion that the move would help it improve local newsgathering. "We are a source of local knowledge," he said. "I don't think they really appreciate what it means to have 15 additional people in the community as a set of ears." Here's the video: