Unlocked: 10 secrets about editors and their mysterious, marvellous, manic ways - and why we should love them

A sad reality about today's digitally driven and metric-obsessed newsrooms is the diminished standing of the never-humble newspaper editor.

Less and less, we have editors of newspapers. More and more, we have content directors across platforms. 

Less and less, editors are kings and queens of their domain - the personification of their masthead's place in the community. More and more, slick marketing of digital assets takes prime position.

Oh, well, that's the media business today and let's not get too romantic about it all.

That said, I'd like to think there's a little bit of the old editor in all of today's news hounds. Particularly, the good bits, of which there are many. 

So in a rather dubious salute to my editor colleagues I'd like to unlock the top 10 secrets about them - and what makes them tick.

1. They're the last of the ideologues: It's probably not true of everyone who enters media today, but for us Gen Xers and Thereabouts it's always been about changing the world. Maybe not in a Watergate-type of way (yes, actually), but about making a difference in our backyard. Understand this and you've got the measure of an editor.
2. They're sanctimonious: As an ex-editorial director of 150 newspapers, I've dealt with my share of editors. Sheesh! What a pack of self-righteous, moralising, tub-thumbing, obnoxious so-and-so's. But no more than I was as an editor. And utterly loveable nonetheless.
3. You won't find a stronger advocate, or a worse enemy:  When you've got no other voice, the Editor will scream from the rooftops. They'll take your concerns to city hall and won't accept no for an answer. Alternately, if you've wronged their community, hell hath no fury like that. In which case, cut your losses, leave town and get someone, no less than Pulp Fiction's Harvey Keitel, to scrub any trace of your existence.
4. You're in PR? Sorry, they hate you: Yep. You can take them to lunch and put a lipstick on that pig of yours, but it's unlikely to fly if it doesn't tick any of the boxes above. The Editor will be figuratively - sometimes literally - gnawing on their arm to get away and considering 10 ways to dismember you.
5. Ring them. Really! Sure, they have their people to handle and organise news tips, complaints and other stuff.  But between news conferences, staff disputes and excruciatingly "push-a-pencil-into-the-eye-dull" budget meetings, they enjoy talking to real people.  Of course, point four still applies for spinners.   
6. Throw one into your next dinner party: They're a mixed bunch, but we're talking BIG personalities. Live on the edge and get an editor to your next long table session. Sit them beside a diametrically opposed local identity and by 10pm you've got a truly gripping reality TV show.
7. They hate listicles: Any self-respecting editor (I'm not one) will deride the listicle as a cheap grab for SEO. Prostitution for that Google juice, Representative of everything that is wrong with modern media. Reducing a good piece of thinking to a list of puerile points? Here's five reasons why that blows ...
8. They are hopeless at counting: Which makes listicles likes these innumerably challenging.
9. They enjoy irony. And words too.

A veritable platypus of human society, the editor is an oddity - to be admired, feared and mulled over all at the same time. But praise be the editor, whose curiosity in their habitat is only surpassed by the interest in how they behave. ​Long may they live.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stuart Howie has spent many of his 30 years in media as an editor and newsroom leader. ​