Post admits: Fewer editors, more mistakes

While it's discouraging to read that The Washington Post has more mistakes in it these days, it's somewhat heartening that at least they admit why this is happening: The paper has cut the number of copy editors it employs.

It would be nice to think that will lead the paper to see the worth of having more sets of eyes on stories as they head into publication and that the paper would hire more editors. But that would be naive.

I read Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli's statement that a new universal desk will be "more effective" in serving print, online and mobile audiences as an edict to Post staff to "do more with less," a rationale trotted out and debunked so often of late in the newspaper industry that I would have thought it had been put out to pasture.

Guess not.

I'm not encouraged by the hope of Andrew Alexander, the article's author, that readers show "some patience and understanding."