Dear Bubbles Galore:
Within almost all industries there develop, over the years, what are known as "Industry Standards". For example, in the self-service car wash industry, trigger guns are now the industry standard. Of course you are completely free to simply use a piece of pipe but in my opinion you do so at your own peril.
The trade publishing magazine industry has its own set of stanbdards. I'll limit myself to naming three: 1. An editor/publisher never changes or adds to what an author wrote without first getting the explicit permission of the author to do so. Of course the editor can correct misspellings or solecisms but that's the extent of it. I can personally attest to the fact that the two mag's for which I will no longer write literally changed what I wrote. That's as clear a violation of industry standards as any professional author can imagine. Moreover, professional authors such as myself (I've been a member of Author's Guild for decades) have a set of ethics which keeps them from writing for such unprofessional editors.
2. A trade magazine is free to express editorial views but usually these are limited to topics within the area of the trade. If one of these mag's gave a clearly labeled editorial stating that non-trigger guns are a menace, then that's fine. To stray into politics is questionable for a trade journal. To not make it very clear that the editor feels free to change an author's work is way out of line. Not illegal, just a clear violation of minimum industry standards.
3. The industry standard is to pay anj autghor a kill fee for work that is produced on time and on topic and then arbitrairly rejected by an editor or publisher. When you get to the task of writing your own trade mag I hope you'll follow these minimum industry standards of professionalism. I have personally been denied such a kill fee by
SSCWN. Of course you are 100% free to do as you please but it is the task and responsibility of long standing professional writers to call you to task when you fail to meet these basic, minimum standards of professionalism within the publishing industry.
Patrick H. Crowe