--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Peter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- nablusos108 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > > Agreed. My point is only that it is not much of a > > big deal. This > > fellow makes a small mistake in his eagerness and > > them he apologies. > > Why all this agitation over a small thing ? > > Journalistic ethics. You can't change writing, in this > context, without indicating that a change has been > made and noting your change from the original work. > Its so the reader knows who wrote what. In this case > the TMO did not like something about the original > piece and changed it without noting they had changed > it. If you make a change in someone elses writing and > then present the writing as if the change has not > been made, that is manipulation.
I'm not sure "manipulation" is the correct term, but the rest is spot-on, and not just for journalists. It's in the same general category of ethical lapses as plagiarism. On the other hand, nablusos is correct that the changes were cosmetic, not substantive, so it's really just the principle of the thing in this particular case. But if that principle wasn't observed here, you can't have confidence that it would be observed with regard to changes that *were* substantive in other pieces, past or future. So it's most definitely Not a Good Thing. And from what Roth has been quoted as saying, it appears he hasn't grasped what the problem is.
