You know technology is changing --- for that matter, you know news economics are changing --- when one of England's most storied titles takes the view it can do without 80 sub-editors and have its reporters file directly into templated pages.
The Daily Express and Sunday Express are changing the way in which reporters and editors function. The pages will be drafted by editors and designers, reporters will be assigned space and told to fill it. Their work will be reviewed still by rewriters (former subs) and lawyers, but the process handled by sub-editors is disappearing.

Jeff Jarvis' column for The Guardian this week points to the evolution of the editor. He notes that the editor needs to become a curator --- a provider of links and a filler of gaps --- more so that the spell-checking, grammar-correcting source.
Given community editing in wikis and blogs, is that displacing the role of the traditional editor? Is the community usurping the assignment and line-editing role?
A related blog today (The Diary of a Wordsmith) at The Editors' Weblog points to the value of the so-called sub editor in the legal sphere, in directing an operation, and in raising the standard of the work.