Layer 1 would be the top editor. His job would be coordinating coverage, leading the newsroom, etc. He’d be more of a manager than anything else.

Layer 2 would be a coordinating editor who handles a lot of the day to day supervision of writers, assigning stories, yelling at reporters, etc. This editor would be permanently attached to his chair and have a bottle of whiskey at his desk.

Layer 3 would be the copy editor, who is responsible for being the last read on any story before it gets published, check some of the basic facts in the article, etc., etc.

That said, you can double up a lot of these duties.

Layer 1 (top editor) could also be in charge of overall management duties at the newspaper, including hiring and firing, etc., etc.

Layer 2 (coordinating editor) might himself be a senior reporter/writer.

Layer 3 (copy editor) would also be in charge of publishing stories to the Web and sifting through wire material, if any.

As a general rule, you want two people to look at any story before it goes out to the rest of the world. However, those two people could be a copy editor and a supervising editor, or a copy editor and one of the reporters.

Why does this necessarily fall on the journalists? The fact that journalists as a group may fail to understand current realities doesn’t mean THIS group has to come to terms with THIS group of investors.