Amen to that... a good editor would have handed the piece back to him or rejected it. Years ago I had a friend who came up freelancing - paid by the word. He never gave up some of his ingrained bad habits which included really sloppy wordy writing after the firth paragraph. Sometime back I saw a piece posted here with his byline. I followed the link - and sure 'nuff it was crap after the first few paragraphs...and it was a fairly good paper that had run the original...
People who have never known journalists as friends have waaaaay too much respect for the profession.