Definition
A person who superintends the selection, preparation, or arrangement of material for publication. In legal contexts, the term most commonly arises in the law of defamation, press freedom, and publishing liability, where it identifies the individual responsible for editorial control over a publication — the person who decides what is published and in what form.
The legal significance of the term turns less on job title and more on the function performed: the editor is the one exercising judgment over content. This matters when liability for published material must be assigned among writers, editors, publishers, and printers.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A person who edits documents; a copy editor; a person at a newspaper, publisher, or similar institution who edits stories and/or decides which ones to publish; also used for software programs and video-editing tools.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): One who edits; especially, a person who prepares, superintends, revises, and corrects a book, magazine, or newspaper for publication.
The common and legal meanings are close in origin but diverge in one important way. Ordinary usage treats "editor" as a role defined by craft — reviewing, revising, correcting. Legal usage treats the editor as a legally responsible party, distinct from the publisher and printer, whose liability depends on the degree of control exercised over content. The craft role and the liability role do not always reside in the same person.
Common Confusion
Editor and Publisher are frequently conflated in older legal sources because, historically, they were often the same person. Bouvier and Anderson both note that the two roles have since separated. In modern publishing law, the publisher is typically the entity that owns and circulates the publication and bears ultimate responsibility for its distribution; the editor controls content selection and preparation. For defamation and press-freedom analysis, the distinction matters: a publisher may be liable for circulation of defamatory material even without editorial involvement, while an editor may face liability based on knowledge and control of content independent of ownership. Researchers reading nineteenth-century cases should assume the roles may be merged and check how each court defined its terms.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research trap is the historical merger of editor and publisher. Pre-twentieth-century cases and statutes often use "editor" to mean the person who both prepared and circulated the paper. Anderson and Bouvier both flag the separation explicitly, signaling that the transition happened within the period covered by their editions. A case decided before that separation may use "editor" in a way that modern readers would parse as "publisher," and vice versa. Researchers tracking defamation liability, press licensing, or seditious libel across the nineteenth century need to read definitions contextually, not nominally.
The term also surfaces in questions about who may be compelled to testify about sources or who qualifies for shield law protections. Jurisdictions vary on whether statutory protections extend to editors as distinguished from reporters or publishers — making the functional definition, not the title, the operative question.
In corpus research, EDITOR cross-connects naturally with entries on LIBEL, DEFAMATION, PUBLICATION, PUBLISHER, PRINTER, and LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. Bouvier cross-references both LIBERTY (Of the press) and NEWSPAPER, suggesting the term should be traced through both those entry chains.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier and Anderson are in close agreement: both record that the editor's role originally encompassed selection, preparation, and publication — effectively the entire editorial and distribution function — and both acknowledge that the role subsequently narrowed as publishing, editing, and printing became distinct occupations. The separation appears complete by the time of both editions.
Neither dictionary provides a formal legal test for editorial liability, and neither engages the constitutional dimensions that twentieth-century press law would develop. What the historical sources offer is a useful baseline: the editor is functionally defined by control over content, and it is that control, not the job title, that courts and commentators treated as the basis for legal responsibility. Researchers should not expect historical dictionaries to resolve modern questions about editorial immunity or Section 230 equivalents — those doctrines postdate the sources entirely.
Jurisdictional Note
Shield laws protecting editors and journalists from compelled disclosure of sources vary significantly by jurisdiction. Some state statutes define "editor" explicitly; others fold the role into broader definitions of "journalist" or "member of the press." Federal common law recognition is limited. Researchers working on press-privilege questions should go directly to the operative statute or rule in the relevant jurisdiction rather than relying on any generic definition.