The “editor,” of course, was Perry White. In the TV show, he was played by Lane Smith. Smith once played Richard Nixon in a TV movie based on Woodward and Bernstein’s The Final Days. So, not only was it a rational explanation as to why people don’t realize that Kent is Superman, it was also an inside joke.
Kevin Smith tells a great story at his lectures about his aborted gig writing the script for the new Superman movie. The producer–apparently a raving nutcase–gave him three criteria for the story: he didn’t want Superman to be seen in “that suit” (he didn’t like the way it looked), he didn’t want him to fly (because the special effects in those other movies always looked so cheesy), and at some point in the movie, Superman had to fight a giant spider (“They’re the fiercest killers in the animal kingdom, you know”).
He went on to suggest that a scene Kevin read to him in which the villain (I forget which one) visits the Fortress of Solitude and doesn’t find Superman there needed an action beat. “Can’t he fight some of Superman’s soldiers?” he asked. “Um, it’s the Fortress of fucking Solitude.” “Well, how about a polar bear? They’re the fiercest killers in the animal kingdom, you know.”
This project was eventually scrapped when Tim Burton signed on. Apparently this producer went on to make Wild Wild West, which I haven’t seen, but which I understand to contain extraneous battles with giant spiders.
Dr. J