Why would anyone become an editor?
This is a question I’ve been asked an awful lot since I threw my lot in with the deskies of the world. Indeed, it’s a question I sometimes ask myself. Our effort is invisible—to the reader, the story was fantastic, not the edit.
On the other hand, our mistakes have the ability to overshadow even the best of stories. One typo, one wrong date or designation, and days of hard work all dissolve into one glaring clarification. Or, worse still, a potential lawsuit.
From the outside, it must seem almost masochistic. But, I promise you, it isn’t.
At the heart of it all, we’re story-tellers. And while our phenomenally talented writers bring us the stories we want to tell, it takes a team of dedicated desk hands to mould that into a compelling narrative worth reading.
This transformation is no painless process. A good editor wields both an axe and a scalpel—hacking away all the filler, while surgically improving the finer points. All while diplomatically dealing with passionate reporters. We act as a check against a writer’s worst impulses, while also amplifying their intended message.
Which brings me to the latest addition to The Ken’s edit desk, Jaideep Vaidya. He joins our Bengaluru bureau, and will be working alongside our writers to elevate the stories we want to tell.
Visual Stories
Jaideep ticks many boxes for us:
Extensive edit experience.
Great grammar.
A flair for story-telling.
Two cats.
What more can one ask for. Oh, and he’s also learning Mandarin Chinese, which will come in handy should we ever decide to expand there.
Jaideep’s been a journalist for over eight years, mostly focused on sports journalism. Before joining The Ken, he spent a year dabbling in the world of freelance, where he wrote about the business of sports for Forbes India, Mint Lounge, ET Magazine and Quartz India. His last proper “job”, though, was at Scroll, where he wore many hats—reporter, sub-editor, news curator, social media manager, breaking news editor and sports desk editor—from 2014-2019.
This will be his first job in pure business journalism, which, he says, “is intimidating but exciting at the same time.”
He has an MA in Multimedia Journalism from the University of Westminster in London, and also a BE in Electronics Engineering from the University of Pune.
When he’s not working or studying Mandarin, you can find him “roller-blading in Cubbon Park, watching badminton, building Legos, reading comic books, or ranting about Manchester United.”
You can follow Jaideep on Twitter at @jaideepjourno. You can reach him by email at <name> at the rate the-ken.com
