Your inside view is very valuable. I really think that in many cases journalism is like playing telephone. By the time the information makes it to the press, mistakes have become embedded and each subsequent repetition adds more.
But nobody at the end really has any way of verifying or clarifying the story, so not all of the "twisting" of a story is intentional. Perhaps the first reporter had a bias - or simply got his/her facts wrong - but the people at the end of the chain just go with what reaches them, regardless.
Copy editor is also responsible for fact checking. Everything stated in the article as fact must be able to be established by independent source. If the writer says so-in-so is so-and-so’s brother-in-law then the copy editor had better be able to provide the confirmation.
I was quite surprised at just how much goes into the publishing of a daily newspaper. And it all has to be done every day, day in and day out, even Christmas. It's truly a fascinating world. I wish I had gotten into it earlier in my work life. As it was, it turned out to be my last ‘real’ job before retiring.
The paper where I worked prided itself in having printed an edition every day for over 100 years! That's quite an accomplishment. At one time it was a family-owned paper and one of the best in the South. It was bought out by a news conglomerate and it by all accounts of those who had been there for 30 or 40 years it was never the same after that. Very conservative under the original owners, and even after the takeover it would still be considered conservative by newspaper standards.
I was in the news photo department and it was a real education!