Writers vs. Editors: The Eternal Struggle

Which is good: Every workplace needs as outlet for gossiping, venting, and kvetching sharing ideas and helping one another. 

And whenever you spend all that time and energy with people, one of two things will happen:

1. You soothe yourself to sleep with murderous fantasies of taking a Ginsu knife and [CENSORED] every last one of them.
2. Your friendship, affection, and camaraderie grows.

Fortunately, I’m in the second category. 

And just as fortunately, I think it’s reciprocal: The other writers like me, too. (Mostly because I almost never pick stories they want to write. Behind the scenes at PJ Media, stories are claimed on a first-come, first-serve basis — and in a 24/7 workplace, it can get VERY competitive. Sharp elbows, headbutts, and even the occasional eye-gouging. But not with me: I’m always claiming goofy PR stories nobody else cares about. It’s my most endearing quality.)

But at first, I didn’t get along nearly as well with the editors.

When I joined PJ Media, my frame of reference was the PR world, where we’d ghostwrite articles and op-eds for our clients, and place them in relevant media outlets. An ad costs a lot of money. With PR, not only do we get the coverage for free, but we also get the (implied) endorsement of the outlet: We’re so important, they had to cover us.

So initially, I treated the editors like I was my own client.

Behind the factory walls at PJ Media, there’s a sausage-making machine that spits out the award-winning articles you read each day. First, the writer claims the idea. Assuming there aren’t objections, he or she completes the article within three hours and uploads it to our CMS.

That’s when the editors take over.

It’s a horrifying sight to behold: Editors have absolute, total control of everything you wrote — and can change ANYTHING they want! 

They can change the title. They can combine sentences. They can remove jokes. They can edit, rewrite, and delete on a whim.

And you’re powerless to prevent it.

That’s a huge challenge in the PR world, because any editorial changes would almost certainly be detrimental to the client: whatever I’ve turned was already optimized!

(For our purposes, I mean.)

Because I’m not trying to create the best content possible for the outlet. Not my monkey, not my circus. It’s my job to maximize PR exposure for the client — and make every victory more victorious.

So I push the envelope to get as much as I can.

Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not trying to screw over the outlet. When this is over, I still want ‘em to return my calls. Clients come and go, but your credibility lasts forever. In an ideal world, the outlet is just as happy with the finished product as we are. 

They’ll be so delighted, in fact, they can’t wait to work with me again.

But my loyalty is always to the client. It’s my job to get all the meat off that bone.

So initially at PJ Media, I had that mindset: I want to help Scott Pinsker have as much freedom as possible. 

That was my professional objective.

For the most part, we PJ Media writers have extraordinary freedom to write, cover and critique whatever — and whomever — we want. Our niche is news, politics, culture, history, lifestyle, business, religion, sports — and that covers a lot of ground. It’s why there’s such a dazzling array of voices, topics, and insights: The world is a REALLY big place!

And we all have different perspectives.

Without question, we have exponentially more editorial freedom than the New York Time, CNN, or the Washington Post — and the proof is in the content. That’s the biggest irony of all: The mainstream media pounded the drums for diversity — yet produced conformity and groupthink.

I joined PJ Media in 2024. I’ve written 500+ articles about war, race, religion, politics, abortion, sex, money, and more. In all that time, a grand total of two ideas were rebuffed by editorial.

That’s not a bad batting average.

It hasn’t really been a challenge, because my sensibilities are similar to our readers. I consider myself a member of the audience, too: We read, watch, and enjoy the same content.

But it’s not perfect overlap: I’m cruder, sloppier, and more off-color. (What can I tell ya? When I was a little boy, I read Truly Tasteless Jokes from cover to cover and giggled like a loon. It made an impression.)

So, for the first few months, I tried slipping in the occasional off-color pun. I poked around the edges of good taste. I danced up to the boundary. Not all the time, but every once in a while.

After all, that’s relevant info for maximizing my “client’s” freedom.

It wasn’t done with malice. But every so often, I’d give a borderline offensive one-liner a whirl — because every now and then, it actually landed on the passable side of the border. 

And then I’d be so happy, because I scored a victory for my “client”: His content was approved!

I’m embarrassed to say, it took me a little while before I realized what I was doing. The agent/client dynamic was so ingrained in my head, I was running on automatic pilot. It felt second nature; I didn’t even think about it.

Because it was stupid — on many levels.

First of all, it “trained” the editors to put me under a microscope, because my content (obviously) couldn’t be trusted. It’s their job to maintain a specific standard, and I was making their life more difficult. By being a doofus, I had inadvertently taught the editors to give my articles EXTRA scrutiny — which was the exact opposite of what I wanted.

Second, it’s the writer’s job to conform to the outlet’s audience — not the other way around. It was arrogant to act otherwise.

Third, I’m not the client. Never was. 

Instead, I’m a writer on a team. 

And on this team, we’re all working under the PJ Media banner to deliver the best possible content for our audience. By design, it’s a collaborative process — and the better the editor edits, the better the writer writes. Shortchanging one shortchanges the other. It’s a symbiotic relationship, like bees and pollen. (Or Venom and Eddie Brock.)

Besides, fighting with someone who’s trying to help you do your best is dumb.

Since having this revelation, my appreciation for editors has grown three sizes (just like the Grinch’s heart). They’re indispensable wordsmiths, operating below the periphery while still bearing responsibility for the final product. Writers will squawk and scream when an editor makes a mistake — yet they’re as silent as a church mouse when the editor saves their bacon. Like it or not, we need each other.

And more importantly, we should be grateful for each other.

Thanks for making me look gooder.