| "Nearly all editors are rather arrogant; it is something one gets used to. I see no harm in it. . ." Over the thirty years I have written for newspapers and magazines, I have found the arrogance of editors to occur in direct proportion to their inability (or unwillingness) to report and write themselves, or to otherwise have impact in their worlds other than to influence, too often arbitrarily, the work of others. "Nearly all editors" are not this way, and certainly not the good ones. The best editors, and writers, I have known, and who have helped me to produce my best work, have been humble and humane, in addition to exacting. In the end, arrogance isn't about standards at all, and it isn't about the work, which it too often gets in the way of; it's about that editor. And it is hardly harmless. |