Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete work.

The editing process often begins with the author's idea for the work itself, continuing as a collaboration between the author and the editor as the work is created. As such, editing is a practice that includes creative skills, human relations, and a precise set of methods.

There are various editorial positions in publishing. Typically, one finds editorial assistants reporting to the senior-level editorial staff and directors who report to senior executive editors. Senior executive editors are responsible for developing a product to its final release. The smaller the publication, the more these roles overlap.

The title of the top editor at many publications may be known as the editor in chief, executive editor, or simply the editor. A frequent and esteemed contributor to a magazine may acquire a title of editor at-large or contributing editor. Mid-level newspaper editors often manage or help manage sections, such as business, sports and features. In U.S. newspapers, the level below the top editor is usually the managing editor.

Ross Gregory Douthat (pronounced /ˈdaʊθət/; born November 28, 1979) is a conservative American author, blogger and New York Times columnist. He was a senior editor at The Atlantic and is author of Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class (Hyperion, 2005) and, with Reihan Salam, Grand New Party (Doubleday, 2008), which David Brooks called the "best single roadmap of where the Republican Party should and is likely to head." He is a film critic for National Review and has also contributed to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, the Claremont Review of Books, GQ, Slate, and other publications. In addition, he frequently appears on the video debate site Bloggingheads.tv. In April 2009, he became an online and op-ed columnist for The New York Times, replacing Bill Kristol as a conservative voice on the Times editorial page. Douthat is the youngest regular op-ed writer in the paper's history.

Douthat was born in San Francisco, California, but grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. He attended Hamden Hall, a private high school in Hamden, Connecticut. Douthat graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 2002, where he was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. While there he contributed to The Harvard Crimson and edited the Harvard Salient. As an adolescent Douthat converted to Pentecostalism and then, with the rest of his family, to Catholicism. His mother is writer Patricia Snow. His father, Charles Douthat, is a partner in a New Haven law firm and an award winning poet. In 2007 Douthat married Abigail Tucker, a reporter for The Baltimore Sun and a writer for Smithsonian. He and his family live in Washington, D.C.