CBC reports that CanWest Global is in the hot-seat for altering the meaning of reports it obtains from other news agencies.
No kidding.
As an example, Schlesinger cited a recent Reuters story, in which the original copy read: “…the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has been involved in a four-year-old revolt against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank.”
In the National Post version of the story, printed Tuesday, it became: “…the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a terrorist group that has been involved in a four-year-old campaign of violence against Israel.”
The news organization has responded as follows:
But the Ottawa Citizen, another CanWest paper, has admitted to making erroneous changes in a story about Iraq from another leading news agency.
Last week, the Citizen inserted the word “terrorist” seven times into an Associated Press story on the Iraqi city of Fallujah, where Iraqi insurgents have been battling U.S.-led occupation forces.
In an interview, Ottawa Citizen editor Scott Anderson conceded fighters in Fallujah were not terrorists but said CanWest has a policy of renaming some groups as terrorists.
He added the paper had applied that term primarily to Arab groups, and that mistakes had been made occasionally.
However, Anderson said he did not believe the paper had a duty to inform its readers when it changed words.
“We’re editing for style… ,” he said. “We’re editing so that we have clear consistent language to describe what’s going on in the world. And if we’ve made a mistake, we should correct that. And we will.”
Now, by my understanding of editorial practice, editing for style concerns such weighty issues as to whether the word Colour should contain a U, or the word Centre should be written Center.
Substituting words hasn’t anything to do with ‘editorial style’ and everything to do with editorial opinion. Any editor worth his Style Manual knows that shit belongs on the Opinions page, not in a news story.
When you can’t trust your media, who can you trust?