[glaring]

You are trying to frame these two quotes as being contradictory by leaving out the words preceding the first quote. Why would you do that?

It should read: "If the editor concludes that it's a garbage story..."

Looks like including the entire sentence makes it pretty clear that this isn't a self-contradicting position to take.

[acituan]

Except the GPs initial framing was not honest to begin with: editors' dismissal is not based on the story being garbage; details of this dismissal is contested and exactly the issue under discussion here. If GP couldn't resist a low effort editorializing of this dismissal reason, they don't get to claim neutrality or agnosticism two sentences later.

Besides, the rest of their post clearly indicates they do think the story is garbage. It looks as if they are giving a spin of legitimacy to that angle as if that was also what editors thought.