Cleaning up the Quote: Wash Post Ombudsman faults ex-Reporter Howard Bryant

Well, I'm not going to apologize for caring. Or for thinking it's completely fine that we hold ourselves to a higher standard than readers do. That's kind of our thing.

 

Well it's not the caring I disagree with you on, it's the fact that you equate cleaning up a quote with compromising one's credibility that I disagree with.

 

And I agreed that that singular case might be overstating it. But if I read a quote from someone in perfect English, but I know that player because I love that team and I watch every highlight and every interview I can...I'm going to know that's not what the guy said. And while I may not doubt the facts in his story, I am going to doubt the quotes.

And with everything else going on in this business, we don't need to be inviting second-guessing.

 

Amen.

 

Abbott, don't you think those readers might have "given a shit" because they're racist assholes.

Cleaning up minor grammar in quotes has been going on forever.

And let me ask another age-old question: By this theory -- absolutely accuracy on quotes -- then we're going to have to start putting every "um" and "uh" and "you know" into those quotes, too.

 

So the first major-league game I covered, I'm down on the field before the game and I see a writer I used to work with. I wander over while he's interviewing a player who talks very fast while sometimes slowing down for some bad stuttering. Writer is scribbling away like crazy and I'm thinking that not only aren't I understanding a word of this, but how the fuck can you quote the guy? So ... do you not clean up his quotes? The local fans know how he talks, so in the interest of honesty do you really have to quote him as, "And the-the-the-then I hi-hi-hi-hi-hit the ball right over his he-he-he-he-head!"

 

Of course it goes to credibility. When you put something in quotes, it says "THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY SAID, HENCE THE USE OF THE QUOTATION MARKS" Those that read the paper versus getting their news from TV are generally better educated and are more apt to think that a quote is a quote. If you want to convey the essence of what someone said, don't use quotation marks.

By cleaning up their quotes you are essentially telling a lie to the reader. And because you're making them sound better than they actually did, you come off as a biased provider of information. If you can clean them up, why shouldn't I believe you make other people look worse? If you can feel sympathy for Clinton Portis such that you would be so embarrassed for him to not print the words he actually used, why wouldn't you dumb down statements by unsympathetic subjects ot those that have pissed you off?

 

"You know what I'm saying, I was just running down the court and you know what I'm saying and that mofo comes out of nowhere and I'm like, Shit, I'm going to get killed, you know what I'm saying? I'm just trying to take a shot and not get killed by that mofo you know what I'm saying?"

"I was just running down the court and (he) comes out of nowhere and I'm (thinking) I'm going to get killed," Player X said. "I'm just trying to take a shot and not get killed."

I really see both sides of this argument. We don't want to get in the habit of changing quotes, but sometimes we have to translate.

 

If any of you are getting quotes 1/4 as bad as the outlandish examples you're putting on here, then I'm really sorry for you. Because I see TV quotes all the time, and NONE of them sound like this.

Anyone wants to accuse me of overstating the case, let's point the light on these quotes.

 

"You know what I'm saying, I was just running down the council session and you know what I'm saying and that mofo comes out of nowhere and I'm like, Shit, I'm going to get my bill killed, you know what I'm saying? I'm just trying to take a shot and not get it killed by that mofo you know what I'm saying?" said Councilman Albert J. Wordsmith III

"I was just running to get down to the council session and (he) comes out of nowhere and I'm (thinking) I'm going to get my bill killed," Albert J. Wordsmith III (R-Dist 4) said. "I'm just trying to take a shot at passing the bill and not get it killed."

 

"The tape recorder killed sportswriting."


- Gay Talese

 

It depends what sport you cover... I clean up quotes like that every single day and if I didn't, our desk would... I'd rather do it myself since I was the one who was there...