My Poynter colleagues and I get quoted all the time. We do hundreds of interviews every year with reporters who are writing about a range of issues, from ethics to ownership changes. On occasion, I see a quote attributed to me that I’m pretty darned sure doesn’t match what I said.
Sometimes my quote has proper grammar when I know I butchered the verb tense in the interview. The reporter cleaned me up.
Sometimes there’s a word in my quote that I wouldn’t use because I don’t even know its meaning. The reporter either wasn’t listening well or took bad notes.
Sometimes my “quote” is a composite of several things I said at different times in the interview. The words may be accurate but the reporter is playing loose with the context, perhaps the writer’s way of tidying up my thoughts to tighten up the story.
Given my frequent “quote guy” role, I took particular interest when Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell called me last week for an interview about a piece she was writing on how reporters quote interviewees. Deborah had already written
one column on the subject that revealed some Post journalists were not following the paper’s policy.
The column addresses controversy generated when a
Post reporter, Howard Bryant, cleaned up quotes from Redskins running back Clinton Portis that
Post columnist Mike Wise had used verbatim. Howell felt the quotes issue needed more exploration in
a second column.
She did, to be sure, quote me accurately! I’m in the camp that believes, “Quotes should accurately and authentically reflect the words used in an interview. If we start changing words inside quote marks, then we raise questions about all other quotes. We will increase the distrust factor about the veracity of our journalism.”
Howell’s two columns are good reading and will likely fuel the debate about when, if ever, it’s appropriate to alter quotes.
What are your thoughts on this?
What's the point of getting a quote if you're going...
