In Which I Find a New Hero

If you are a reporter, or even a concerned citizen, you probably couldn't go wrong choosing Dana Priest as your hero. She has been nominated for and won multiple Pulitzers, most recently for reporting on Walter Reed, and is just an all-around fantastic journalist.

I dub her my hero today, however, for what she told The Washington Post's ombudsman for a depressing column about how reporters love copy editors and are sad to see them go (translation: reporters are slowly realizing that copy editors save their butts day in and day out).

She said:

"Throughout my 22 years at the paper, copy editors have frequently interrupted my family dinner or my goodnight reading with the kids, and those rereading front-page proofs have woken me up, often after 11:30 p.m., to ask to change the smallest of things. I can only hope I have remembered to thank them each and every time, even as I've tried to fall back to sleep. They are meticulous and pride themselves, as they should, on catching the mistakes of those of us who make much more money and get much more credit for the collective daily work known as The Washington Post."

It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.