The most baffling thing about Jeremy Clarkson’s attack on Meghan is: where was the sub-editor?

Of the Harry and Meghan versus everyone else shenanigans, I will say nothing. I’m not interested.

Of Jeremy Clarkson’s much publicised words about Meghan I’ll say little, except to comment that what he said was despicable.

Of the process that resulted in a newspaper printing this inordinate attack on a woman, I will say much.

Were sub-editors involved? If they were, why didn’t they do their job?

A news room has (or used to have) two camps: reporters and sub-editors. Reporters hunt down stories. This is difficult, and often done in trying circumstances.

Some reporters (by no means all) are more skilled at getting people to talk than they are at presenting what they’ve been told. That doesn’t matter. Sub-editors hone the article for them. A tweak here, a clarification there.

Subs are the guardians of a newspaper. They go through each story, line by line. They spot danger, things that might attract legal action.

A newspaper report should leave no questions in the reader’s mind. They should never think: “I don’t understand”. Subs ensure this happens.

Another part of the job is to scrutinise the content of stories (and opinion columns) ensuring they meet the newspaper’s usual standards. These standards vary from paper to paper (now there’s an understatement!)

Ludicrously, indeed a notion I think is suicidal, some news outlets nowadays think they can do without subs. Many (especially online) sources have writers pressing “publish” on stories, with no one checking.

A wise sub-editor would have gone back to Clarkson, or taken his unsavoury words to the editor, and said: “We can’t print this muck”.

That Clarkson article was published a month ago. Such furores usually die away. But, much to his discomfort, his increasingly desperate attempts to apologise aren’t working. His bilious words continue to be used as a rod to beat him.

Perhaps a sub-editor, the voice of caution he should have been able to rely upon, let him down. Perhaps he is too high and mighty to have anyone touch his copy. You do get the occasional arrogant writer who thinks their peerless prose is plainly perfect.

Good writers know a good sub improves even an already good story.

The Clarkson-Meghan saga proves that subs are vitally important.

Newspapers can’t do without subs. You can’t replace them with a machine. It’s a job that can’t be done by an amateur. It needs a seasoned, well-read, worldly-wise, slightly cynical sort of person.

The sort who can save us all from the worst excesses of people like Jeremy Clarkson.