Bix dot Blog

I won’t try to answer this in his “braintrust” thread, since I’ll respect the fact that he blocked me on Twitter, but Winer definitely should push back against a reporter rewriting his quotes. I’ve had this happen but only learned of it in the finished, published piece. I’ve no idea if it’s “standard practice” but it’s certainly more common than it ought to be. They’re literally not quotes if the reporter has rewritten them, and if you can’t trust a reporter to only quote what was actually said, what else might they have “massaged” in their reporting? I know there’s an argument that if you clear the rewrites with the source first they become quotes, but, personally, I believe that practice should be disclosed in the piece itself.