Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

atoz
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Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by atoz »

Hi all

Those of us who read the Comic will know that a howler of a subeditor error has resulted in this publication being accused of sexism. See this link

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... an-caption

Yes a tasteless sexist cockup by a subeditor was made- OK. But to slag of one of our longest lived cycling publications as if the whole magazine was like that is ridiculous, and to boycott it, as was suggested in this article is potentially damaging. Cycling Weekly has been published since 1891, and I for one would be sad to see it go just because of an unfortunate mistake. In any case if you look at content written now for the magazine, it's pretty modern and inclusive.

My parents used to read Cycling (as it then was) back in the 1930s. It was always a popular publication for cyclists, and that is why it's survived. To be sure, mistakes have been made over the years. That's what happens. Noone's perfect.

I think enough is enough. An apology has been made. Time to move on.
Vorpal
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by Vorpal »

Cycling Weekly has been sexist for as long as I have been familiar with it. The first time I was put off was an article some years ago about how men and women need to train differently because TESTOSTERONE.

Their readership is overwhelmingly male, so they print stuff to appeal to men.

We try not to be oversensitive, but somehow it does feel like a momentary lifting of the lid, doesn’t it?
says it all, as far as I'm concerned.
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old_windbag
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by old_windbag »

I take "token attractive woman" to be a female generated term. I thought it was always touted because where men are concerned quite often in adverts and imagery there will be a very attractive woman. It was a humorous dig at the way men tend to do things. In its use here I just feel the people at the magazine have put it as a sarcastic comment to be removed or not, but not meant to cause uproar. It's like when we hear phrases like "does my bum look big in this", it's female oriented and based on perhaps things partners often hear. That may be urban myth but we get little phrases into the language associated with both sexes for reasons connected with their cliche'd traits.

I'm sure in an all woman editorial team the conversations and comments internally wouldn't all be PC and saintly. Yes a mistake may have been made in editing but one day it may happen the other way around, will that make headlines.... I doubt it.
thirdcrank
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by thirdcrank »

I wonder if the comic has much of a readership on here? I was an avid reader in the days when an attempt at a change in direction led to a few years as Cycling and Mopeds. It's quite a while since I bought a copy but when I was doing our shopping before my wife retired, I used to cheat in Asda and take a peek at the Helms cartoon but that's gone now. In short, I couldn't guess at the current target audience. You can get live coverage of big bike races and gone are the days when you had to wait for the comic to know what was happening in the TdeF etc. With the move away from time-trialling, there must be a limited number of people who want to see their name in print for coming 10th in the Wobbly Wheelers '25' so they must be in direct competition with all the other bike, clothing, equipment review mags etc.

Very sad for what I believe to be the longest-running sports mag in the country, but it's the fate of the "dead tree" media I fear.
bertgrower
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by bertgrower »

I understand the sub editor has been sack.


CW get a life.
Richard Fairhurst
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

We try not to be oversensitive, but somehow it does feel like a momentary lifting of the lid, doesn’t it?


I honestly don't think it does.

I've worked for four magazines full-time (asst ed Keyboard Review, dep ed Canal Boat, editor Heritage, editor Waterways World), plus several as a freelance. In every case, the page designers have worked in a different part of the building - actually, at Canal Boat, they were in a different county entirely. They're the ones who choose the final pics from a selection sent across by editorial.

Editorial usually sends more pics than will go in the final article. As a result, the final captions get put on at a later stage - there's no point writing captions for 50 pics if the designer only chooses five. So it's not uncommon for the designer to use a dummy caption like "Caption goes here", or "xxxxxxxx", or just something copied and pasted from a previous article or template. Editorial will then mark a correct caption up on the first proof, or send through a document with them all in.

You're always told never to write something stupid in the dummy text, because one day it will get through, but the designer here appears to have disregarded that... hence the offensive caption. (It's far from the only case: a million copies of the Sunday Times magazine once went to press with a caption of "ANOTHER ******* BORING PICTURE OF ******* KITCHEN KNIVES". Just without the asterisks.)

Cycling Weekly may run differently to the magazines I've worked on. I honestly don't know - I don't read it. But if it's anything like my experience, this episode doesn't say anything about the editorial department. It does say something about the design studio, but they're usually fairly ribald places (and very often majority female) and this wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

(I remember dictating a caption over the phone to a designer at Canal Boat. The caption should have been "A hire cruiser in Narbonne". It ended up as "A higher cruiser in Narbonne". Looking at the picture... well, I guess the designer was right: there were two waterways in the picture and the boat was on the higher one...)
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by Vorpal »

Richard Fairhurst wrote:
We try not to be oversensitive, but somehow it does feel like a momentary lifting of the lid, doesn’t it?



I honestly don't think it does.

Editorial usually sends more pics than will go in the final article. As a result, the final captions get put on at a later stage - there's no point writing captions for 50 pics if the designer only chooses five. So it's not uncommon for the designer to use a dummy caption like "Caption goes here", or "xxxxxxxx", or just something copied and pasted from a previous article or template. Editorial will then mark a correct caption up on the first proof, or send through a document with them all in.

You're always told never to write something stupid in the dummy text, because one day it will get through, but the designer here appears to have disregarded that... hence the offensive caption. (It's far from the only case: a million copies of the Sunday Times magazine once went to press with a caption of "ANOTHER ******* BORING PICTURE OF ******* KITCHEN KNIVES". Just without the asterisks.)

I also assumed that something like that had happened. But 'lifting the lid' still applies, if someone thought it was funny to label them 'token' women.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
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meic
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by meic »

Even in the twenty first century there are still a few people left with a sense of humour.
Often the humour is better for being inappropriate, the British used to be proud of this characteristic once upon a time. To be fair it was one of the better defining characteristics of the British character.
Yma o Hyd
Psamathe
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by Psamathe »

Vorpal wrote:
Richard Fairhurst wrote:
We try not to be oversensitive, but somehow it does feel like a momentary lifting of the lid, doesn’t it?



I honestly don't think it does.

Editorial usually sends more pics than will go in the final article. As a result, the final captions get put on at a later stage - there's no point writing captions for 50 pics if the designer only chooses five. So it's not uncommon for the designer to use a dummy caption like "Caption goes here", or "xxxxxxxx", or just something copied and pasted from a previous article or template. Editorial will then mark a correct caption up on the first proof, or send through a document with them all in.

You're always told never to write something stupid in the dummy text, because one day it will get through, but the designer here appears to have disregarded that... hence the offensive caption. (It's far from the only case: a million copies of the Sunday Times magazine once went to press with a caption of "ANOTHER ******* BORING PICTURE OF ******* KITCHEN KNIVES". Just without the asterisks.)

I also assumed that something like that had happened. But 'lifting the lid' still applies, if someone thought it was funny to label them 'token' women.

Could work either way. were they actually labelling it as "token woman". I've posted comments (not here, not many) heralding what a fine job Saint Theresa is doing ... in the context of something she's done completely daft as a form of sarcasm. Maybe the "joke" was a pointed comment at another employee or even directed at a different publication, or anywhere, maybe following an office discussion about the world, could be hundreds of things (including what so many assumed it was). I think impossible to say.

Ian
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by Psamathe »

meic wrote:Even in the twenty first century there are still a few people left with a sense of humour.
Often the humour is better for being inappropriate, the British used to be proud of this characteristic once upon a time. To be fair it was one of the better defining characteristics of the British character.

I would agree. As a nation the UK has become very quick to take offence, demanding scapegoats, etc.

Ian
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by thirdcrank »

The problem with these unexpected revelations can be seeing the real attitudes of the people involved, attitudes which are normally hidden under the PR veneer. I'm not clear what's revealed here. While it's been taken as an insult by the sub to one woman in particular and all women by implication, I could interpret it as irony directed at the publisher for routinely using such pictures. Not that that makes it better, just a different angle.

(psamathe got in before me.)
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by Psamathe »

thirdcrank wrote:The problem with these unexpected revelations can be seeing the real attitudes of the people involved, attitudes which are normally hidden under the PR veneer. I'm not clear what's revealed here. While it's been taken as an insult by the sub to one woman in particular and all women by implication, I could interpret it as irony directed at the publisher for routinely using such pictures. Not that that makes it better, just a different angle.

(psamathe got in before me.)

Or a joke relating to some other publication they'd all been joking about in their office, or anything.

Ian
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by old_windbag »

meic wrote:Even in the twenty first century there are still a few people left with a sense of humour.
Often the humour is better for being inappropriate, the British used to be proud of this characteristic once upon a time. To be fair it was one of the better defining characteristics of the British character.


Exactly. I used to be very entertained by Viz comic, probably very un-PC by modern standards but very funny indeed and not created by racists, sexists or any other ists.... other than humorists perhaps.

Go into any supermarket or card store and read through all of the humorous birthday cards and we can see how humour works. There aren't many jokes without a "stereotype" basis. This inoffensive comment( as richard said above probably just a tag to be removed later ) was nothing other than that.

I noticed the attitude of the ladies of the cycling club was in effect "put him in a peleton with us and we'd ride him off our wheel any day", just the sort of male testoterone driven attitude we don't like. I'm sure lizzie armistead( as was ) would ride them off her wheel. It's not a competition ladies relax it was simply a GSOH.
atoz
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by atoz »

thirdcrank wrote:I wonder if the comic has much of a readership on here? I was an avid reader in the days when an attempt at a change in direction led to a few years as Cycling and Mopeds. It's quite a while since I bought a copy but when I was doing our shopping before my wife retired, I used to cheat in Asda and take a peek at the Helms cartoon but that's gone now. In short, I couldn't guess at the current target audience. You can get live coverage of big bike races and gone are the days when you had to wait for the comic to know what was happening in the TdeF etc. With the move away from time-trialling, there must be a limited number of people who want to see their name in print for coming 10th in the Wobbly Wheelers '25' so they must be in direct competition with all the other bike, clothing, equipment review mags etc.

Very sad for what I believe to be the longest-running sports mag in the country, but it's the fate of the "dead tree" media I fear.


The "dead tree" Cycling Weekly seems to be doing OK so far. Just renewed it- in good old fashioned print. They tried to do a digital version but it's a dog and noone bothers with it. The target audience seems often to be the sportive crowd but a lot of the other mags are just product promo and not much else. Some of the product reviews are entertaining, if only to laugh at some of the prices..
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Si
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Re: Cycling Weekly's sub editor blunder

Post by Si »

I get it on readly but rarely bother reading it. As mentioned, its a bit sportive...nout wrong with that if you like sportives, but im not a sportiffer so not a lot to interest me.
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