Tag: copy editor

AI impact: ‘Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too’

The Daily Oklahoman newsroom in the 1980s. Then Sports Editor Jerry McConnell is on the far right.

When I joined The Daily Oklahoman sports desk in the fall of 1983, it was a black and white world. Published photographs were all black and white. The newspaper pages themselves were black and white (and read all over!).

It’s hard to overstate the impact the newspaper had on Oklahoma City and beyond. The paper’s circulation was north of 200,000 and we circulated in every county in the state. When someone wanted a sports score or a football recruiting update, or to complain about a headline, they called the paper.

I know because I was on the receiving end of those calls a lot.

We drew our pages by hand on sheets of paper, which were sent down to the composing room to be put together by a large crew of folks. There was an often frenetic scene in composing as people rushed around at a frantic pace on deadline, shouting ‘we need a cut!’ for an editor to help them splice story that was too long as it was pasted on the page.

Some nights I acted as a copy editor on the sports desk, working to smooth the rough edges off of copy, as well as writing headlines. Other nights, I actually drew the pages, although I had such a lack of artistic vision that my pages usually looked as if they were part of a third-grade art project.

Anyway, desktop publishing was introduced in the newsroom in 1987. Our jobs dramatically changed, as we ‘drew’ our pages on a computer screen and they came out of the printers as one compete sheet instead of having to be pasted down by hand. There were far fewer people needed in the composing room.

Desktop publishing required more people to work on the sports desk to lay out individual pages. We were a little community that endured the stressful race to make three deadlines a night, often remaking much of the sports section for each deadline.

As desktop publishing became more sophisticated, one of my co-workers on the sports desk saw what was coming. He predicted that technology would advance so far that copy editors would all be replaced some day by ‘automatic headline writers.’

Doug Simpson, you saw where things were headed 30 years before it became reality. In fact, a recent Google search revealed dozens of sites offering AI headline writing, including the popular “Grammarly” site that offers a ‘free headline generator.’ 


There has been ongoing controversy over news sites that use AI to write their actual copy, including a disturbing story from 2023 about some Sports Illustrated copy generated by AI. Sports Illustrated was once considered the Gold Standard of sports writing.


Today, we’re seeing predictions every day about how AI will replace millions of jobs worldwide. We’ve seen some of it become reality locally when Paycom cut 500 jobs and attributed it to artificial intelligence.

So where will it all end? Will artificial intelligence really displace millions of white collar jobs, including the software coding jobs that created AI in the first place?

Call me a skeptic, but I can’t see AI replacing airline pilots, health care professionals or school teachers, among many other professions.

But then, I think back to what my newspaper colleague Doug predicted more than three decades ago. There ARE automatic headline writers in 2026.

So, I’ll close this with a quote from one of my favorite movies, Caddyshack, which reflects the attitude of our AI overlords. It’s a scene where caddy Danny Noonan confesses to Judge Smalls during a round of golf that he might not be able to go to college because his parents don’t have enough money.

“Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too,” the judge tells Danny as he walks away.

Ouch.

The old Double-Reverse Jinx does it again

OU receiver Isaiah Sategna races toward goal line in victory over LSU.


When OU wide receiver Isaiah Sategna blew past LSU defensive backs in busted coverage last week to catch a game-sealing 58-yard TD pass, I missed the moment.

I could say that I was out back on our patio grilling or answering an unexpected knock at the door, but it would not be true.

The truth is that because it was late in a really tight game and I was invested in the outcome as someone who has bought into OU, I found something else to do at that moment.

Why?

Well, turning my back on a close game in which I have a rooting interest goes back many decades. I’m not even sure what to call it. Lack of courage? Can’t face reality?

Call it what you will, but I prefer to call it my double-reverse jinx.

As a pre-teen in the early 1960s, the Arkansas Razorbacks were my team. I lived and died with the Hogs. In those days, you mostly had only radio broadcasts on which to follow college football games.

So, when the Hogs were playing on an autumn afternoon I was tuned in — until I wasn’t. I specifically remember, when, in the second half of a really close game with the Razorbacks in a precarious position, I abandoned the radio, ran out into the back yard and started throwing a football around.

A few minutes later, I went back in and caught a couple minutes of the broadcast, but the outcome was still pending. I went back outside.

When the Hogs won that game with me not listening, I decided that all their success hinged on me not ever listening again when the outcome was on the line. Somehow, I controlled their fate.

My double-reverse jinx helped the Hogs have a great decade of success in the ’60s.

Fast forward to the late ’80s when I worked on the sports desk as a copy editor at The Daily Oklahoman. That meant that my daily working hours were from roughly 3-4 pm until midnight or 1 am.

Those working hours afforded the opportunity to drive out to the then-new Remington Park race track in the early afternoon on almost a daily basis to watch and wager on the horse races.

You know where this is going.

Yep, if I had $2 on a horse and it was among the leaders as they came off the final turn and into the stretch, I would turn my back and only listen to the track announcer’s call. One afternoon, I had maybe $5 on a horse and spent the entire race in the men’s room, safe from ruining the outcome by actually watching my horse.

I took a lot of grief from my newsroom colleagues for not being able to watch the outcome of races on which I had wagered. But that’s how I rolled.

Fast forward to 2025. It’s still how I roll when watching the Sooners, the Razorbacks, even the Thunder. When the game gets tough and the outcome precarious, I bail on the game.

And then it happens. Shai Gilgious-Alexander hits a game clinching 3. Isaiah Sategna makes a game winning catch.

The old double-reverse jinx does it again.

BONUS CONTENT: Don Mecoy, a friend and past contributor to BlogOKC, shared some of his own experience in not jinxing his favorite teams:

“Super Bowl V. Cowboys-Colts. I got on my bike during the game and rode and rode. Didn’t help.

“National Championship game in 2000. Sat in the same spot on the couch throughout the first and second half. Really had to pee by the end of the game. And I was hungry too. Literally didn’t get up once.”

Thanks for this perspective, Don. I am not alone!