Well, wait a sec. It does have a bearing on the overall editorial quality of the paper, unless as a reader you can figure out a predictable reason for editoria

Well, wait a sec. It does have a bearing on the overall editorial quality of the paper, unless as a reader you can figure out a predictable reason for editorial quality to drop for only one specific topic. It means that a poorly researched article can get out of the door without being flagged. Individual articles of clothing, food, and other products coming out of a company are inspected by different people. But when I go to Wendy's and buy some fries, I don't know which people are inspecting and preparing my food, and know who was preparing my food wouldn't be useful unless I already knew a lot about that person. If I went to a restaurant and my fries had mold on them, it would probably be the fault of a small percentage of the workers there. But I would still be justified in distrusting the rest of my food, even if I thought the rest of the food on my plate was probably prepared by different people. I don't know enough about the individual staff members of my local newspaper or their individual contributions to each article to make an educated distinction between them. If I see evidence that my overall newspaper is willing to publish badly researched articles, it seems very logical to me to conclude, "hey, when you see an article in a subject you're not familiar with, remember that it might be one of the duds. If you see an article by a reporter you're not already familiar with, remember that they were hired by a newspaper that occasionally hires bad reporters."