So, now I’ve told you that proofreading is more than reading, I bet you’re all wondering what makes me think that I’m qualified to give an opinion on what’s right or wrong.
Let me tell you.
My degree was in Communications where I learnt SO much about how, why, and what we use to communicate (it’s not just language, you know 😉). I’ve always known that the ability to articulate a clear message is incredibly important.
After I graduated, I spent a couple of years working in radio at the BBC (even had my own jingles, don’t you know!) but then I found my niche. I moved to the Big Smoke and began working in Broadcast Compliance for a large television company. To all intents and purposes, I was being paid to watch TV.
However, just as proofreading isn’t ‘just reading’, editorial TV compliance isn’t ‘just watching TV’.
I began to polish my radar for detecting any errors that broke the extensive broadcasting rules – cheeky product placements, naughty words, even the size, colour and length of text on screen was analysed…..there were lots of rules to which the stations had to adhere.
The more fun stuff was catching lapses in continuity (the sort of thing where one minute the actor’s left hand is holding a cup but in the next shot it’s in their right hand), anything that was vaguely inappropriate for the time of broadcast, and so on. I would work with scriptwriters to help them get it right first time and worked on live shoots, my finger poised over the ‘swear’ button. Very amusing!
We had pesky promotions producers who would always try and slip something through at the last minute. But nothing got past the eagle eyes of the compliance team!
And I found I enjoyed scrutinising that level of detail.
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