Today's Scotland on Sunday managed to take an extract from my post on Thursday offering continued support of Simon Hughes into a totally different apparent meaning. This is especially true when the following paragraph goes on to talk about tolerance.
The Scotland in Sunday did not contact me before using this copyrighted material is such a spurilous way, in an article they guess I would not have given prior approval. Also until online editions of newpapers use blog etiquette and start to link to the articles from which they select extracts so that their readers can see the quote in context they are showing signs of laziness and bad manners. If Wikipedia can link through footnotes to articles cited so can the online editions of our newspapers.
For the record I have no problems with Simon Hughes' sexual preferences present or past, its disclosure has not affected my support for him, as the remainder of the article showed. While the quote is word prefect its location in the SonS article which taken out of context distorts its meaning and has the reverse effect to my original intention.
You should try and get them to publish an apology, and if they won't then take it to the Press Complaints Commission?
ReplyDeleteBy talking about a Five Live phone in and then saying 'Stephen Glenn added,' the paper gives the very misleading impression that you were taking part in the Five Live phone-in and, by using 'added,' that you were agreeing with the guy who felt badly let down. (Your quote itself doesn't actually sound as if you've changed your opinion - it's the misleading context in which it's been put, I think).
Re. quoting from copyrighted material, though - isn't it OK (legally) as long as it's brief?
BTW, the question of how the Sun got information on chatline usage without breaking the Data Protection Act is an interesting one...
I've already written to the paper seeking a written apology. I think you may be right on the copyrighting issue however we then get into the grey area of intellectual property and the fact that my intellectual property rights on that blog entry have been distorted in a form that a large number of the 7100 people who voted for me in May might misconstrue as not being happy about Simon when the opposite is indeed the case. Possibly portraying me as an illiberal Liberal Democrat.
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