Letters to the Editor
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There are editors and there are editors
I was a good four paragraphs into this article, before I realized what kind of editors Gary Kamiya seems to be discussing; his vagueness throughout the article doesn't help.
Most readers coming to this article might initially think Kamiya is discussing the folks on the top of the masthead--of the very visible William Kristol and Fred Hiatt and Paul Steiger, for example. They're all "editors," but I seriously doubt any of them does rewriting, fact-checking, line-editing, copyediting, proofreading, or any of the other behind-the-scenes tasks Kamiya praises here.
Instead, Kamiya seems to be talking about unsung heroes like the late Claire Cook (author of Line by Line) or Eleanor Gould Packard (of New Yorker fame)--those who, often thanklessly, polished prose behind the scenes and helped authors avoid embarrassment and error.
A good editor would have clarified the matter for Kamiya's readers.