How closely did you work with authors at the paper? I'm referring to the "ask authors to revise and resubmit" point. Do articles go through several revisions for quality, or is it more to match the agenda of the publication? Such a tough job, behind every great author is an even better editor.
I was in direct line communication with them. Some of them sat next to me in the office. In most cases, I simply revised an article if it needed it. But revisions were occasionally requested. In our case, we had a managing editor who read every article before it got to the news editor, which was me, and they'd request revisions if need be. Another level of quality control.
Our publication didn't have an agenda. We were a community newspaper. You can't serve a community of 5,000 with an agenda. I was known for my unbiased reporting and would often get compliments from both sides of an issue for the way I handled the news.