Before a piece of journalism is published in a magazine or newspaper, it usually undergoes one or several rounds of edits, designed to make its arguments more forceful, its narrative more compelling, its language more unified, or its spelling and grammar more accurate. Occasionally, due to some small ignorance or misunderstanding about a writer’s meaning, an editor will make a change that has precisely the opposite of this clarifying effect. If you’ve read the headline on this post and know anything about the standard versus metric systems of measurement, you may already know where I’m going with this.

Paula Deen's 45-second "apology" for "mistakes that I've made," was delivered with several cuts and several more halting silences. Here are all of them. There is just as much content in this edit as there is in her original statement.

Last night, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep did what any self-respecting pair of BFFs does when they're together at "the club" (in this case, the Kennedy Center Honors gala): they took a selfie. Unfortunately, we don't have access to Streep's iPhone, and will likely never see the original photo. But we can imagine what they might have done with it afterward, in the social image editor of their choice:

When I first started editing way back in 2002, Avid was an undisputed tyrant who ruled the land of digital non-linear editing with an iron fist. Then Final Cut Pro came along and editors everywhere were given a choice of platform. As this clip makes clear, it's really just a choice between the lesser of two evils.

If you spend more than five minutes talking to an editor, you're sure to hear about how some story or other was a total piece of shit before said editor got his hands on it. Now you can judge for yourself! The Washington Post mistakenly posted this health story by Laura Ungar online with ALL OF THE EDITOR'S ALL-CAPS NOTES INCLUDED. [The final version of the story hasn't been published yet.] We've pasted it below in case it gets pulled. Editors make typos, too! Kill them!

While watching the Lord of the Rings movies—or reading the books, I suppose—did you ever wonder if the ring was really only able to be destroyed in the fiery pits of Mordor? This alternate ending answers the question.

Meghan McCain is the illiterate daughter of a ruined man, which makes her "column" for the Daily Beast something of a challenge for her editors. But by the looks of today's offering, they've given up.

Today's edition of the Toronto Star is actually worth reading for one reason: It was guest edited by the Dalai Lama. Here's a video of His Holiness' thought process while deciding what went into the paper's Sunday edition.

The Daily Beast appears to have published the most mixed metaphor of all time.

Wikileaks' most compelling aspect is its ability to dig up the raw data behind the scandals it exposes. You can't argue with documents produced by the culprits themselves! That's why 30 minutes of missing footage in their helicopter video matters.

This game of beer pong takes its players all the way into the sky...but is that really possible or is this all just editing tricks?

Now you can copy-edit Dan Gillmor's book drafts. Where will the internet take us next?!

Here, perhaps the single most bootleg photo editing job ever, which spared 1971 LA Times readers the horror of seeing Charlton Heston bare-chested. Click to enlarge it right this instant. [LAT via Sociological Images]

Last weekend, the White House made a subtle adjustment to the "issues" page of its web site, eliminating any claims of Barack Obama having accomplished anything and changing it to, basically, "we're working on it."

As soon as you see an op-ed which begins, "As the owner of one of the 25th largest public relations agencies in the U.S.," you should immediately guess that it's an opus by none other than language-challenged sock puppeteer and unapologetically incompetent superflack Ronn [sic] Torossian, head of 5WPR. "Let's begin with the basics: Bribery is unacceptable, yet for a democracy or civilized government, it is wholly abhorrent," writes Ronn. Please explain, sir!

We got tipped on this an hour ago and happily it still hasn't been corrected. The New York Post's review of Mamma Mia comes with bracketed editor's notes asking the reviewer to clarify vague passages! At no extra charge! Anyone want to check the print version for us? In case they fix it, click to see the screengrabs. [NYP]

A media company identifying itself as "Cond Nast Publications" is in need of a copy editor. Specifically, the ad says, "TheAssociate Copy Editorreviews copyedited text." Urgent, please apply now! Click through for a screengrab of thisjobopportunity.

Do you ever feel that your editor is making a mockery out of your work? Sometimes they just don't understand. The Raleigh News & Observer sends up an imagined editing of a recent NYT story. [Which NYT story? Specify!]