Clive Thompson
1 min readOct 15, 2023

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I like the idea of using "debugger" in a lot of contexts! It's a wonderful role, activity, and word. A lot of people outside tech/technical jobs would probably nod approvingly in recognition at the description of debugging as an activity, and recognize in it a lot of their own work.

"Editor" is a strange word -- though it's most commonly understood to mean "someone who is editing and tweaking and assigning articles / videos / etc", in the world of traditional media, there are "editors" whose jobs are almost entirely managerial, and who spend almost no time personally editing stories or videos or copy. A "managing editor" at a newspaper or magazine generally does managerial work -- approving contracts, managing HR and budgets, etc. They'll often come from a working-with-journalism background, but at some point have realized they're good at managerial work and wind up in that "managing editor" job. They're not *un* involved in the tweaking or assigning of journalistic pieces; often managing editors are closely involved in deciding what gets assigned, etc. -- it's a very senior role. But the nuts and bolts of the job is managerial work and, I daresay, a lot of it is much like debugging the organization ... fixing problems that emerge.

This is a long-winded way of saying, the word "editor" can be pretty expansive. I think a lot of people who call themselves "content managers" etc could attach themselves to media history and call themselves some sort of editor, frankly ...

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Clive Thompson
Clive Thompson

Written by Clive Thompson

I write 2X a week on tech, science, culture — and how those collide. Writer at NYT mag/Wired; author, “Coders”. @clive@saturation.social clive@clivethompson.net

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