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

First of all, I 100 percent -- it'd be more if I could -- guarantee you that AP writers do not follow that AP passage to the letter. Guarantee.

But I was thinking about this Monday night listening to the radio driving home after work. A bigshot with the Democratic National Committee was being interviewed. Smart guy, obviously, former congressman. And he was debating the guy doing the interviewing. A typical quote in the exchange:

"Well, the, the, the, the the thing about it is that Democrats are, are, are, well, are going to nominate the, the, the, the, the one, one, one, one candidate who articulates ..."

Etc.

Now, it wasn't nearly as offputting as he was saying it as it is to read. He wasn't stuttering. A lot of us repeat words in conversation.

But AP says it would try to have us write:

"Well, the ... thing about it is that Democrats are ... going to nominate the ... one ... candidate who articulates ..."

It's simply ridiculous. And even the most adamant posters on this thread who insist quotes should be exactly as uttered by the speaker don't write their quotes that way. I guarantee that, too. Unless somebody wants to correct me.

 

I don't know why, but there's a difference between converting des, dem and does into these, them and those and reconjugating verbs.

If a person says, "We be going to da store when da boy lean out da car and he be shootin up da whole street"

Do you write it that way or "We were going to the store when the boy leaned out of the car and was shooting up the whole street."

 

No, I wouldn't write the quote that way. I'd paraphrase and wait for something usable.

 

What if that's just how the guy talks? What if there is nothing up to your standards of "usable."

Or here's another: What if the guy actually WAS a stutterer? Do you quote him as is, which obviously would make it look like you were making fun of him? Do you not quote him at all? What if you pretty much HAVE to quote him at some point? Do you just ellipse the hell out of him, to the point where the quote is completely unreadable?

I'm just asking. I'd like to know.

I think it's OK to drop "stuttering," in any of its forms. but that's just me.

 

I didn't read the rest of the thread, so I don't know if someone has said this already, but...

Why, Ragu, do you think Portis would have thought a reporter was "making him sound like an idiot" by quoting him accurately? That implies Portis simply thinks he sounds like an idiot, period. But, of course, he does not - he thinks he sounds how he sounds. (And Clinton Portis, of all people, seems pretty comfortable in his own skin.) For all we know - indeed, I'd guess this to be the case - he PREFERS his own version to the sanitized one.

So: it is YOU, Ragu, not Clinton Portis, who thinks Clinton Portis' statement makes him sound like an idiot. And that's just not a good enough reason to inaccurately transcribe what he has said.

 

What Bryant has done here isn't "cleaning up." It's not like Portis said "nuculear" when you know he meant "nuclear." Rather, he has de-Portis-ized - Howard Bryant-ized - a Portis quote because Portis' speech embarrasses him.

 

I know exactly what silentbob and mizzou are talking about ... the basketball coach at the school I used to cover would go off on six tangents in one quote, and if I used it all, it would become nonsensical.

 

I'll ignore ums and uhs, but that's because I don't see them as words, they're sounds.

Otherwise I quote what they said because that's what the quotes signify. Reactions of the speakers have gone both ways. A communications major recently asked me to change her quote in an online story (that also ran in print) to "ever saw" to "ever seen." Sorry, not what she said.

I also had a source tell me her mom called me the day the story ran to scold her for saying "ain't." She wasn't mad. She laughed. "My mom's been yelling at me about that for years. I need to get better about that."

And believe it or not, I had a source the other day tell me she liked talking to me better than my predecessor because I didn't clean up her quotes. "You print exactly what I say."

If you're being interviewed, wouldn't you feel odd to see your quotes cleaned up the next day? I know the reporter might be trying to be helpful but I wouldn't trust them again because they're taking liberties with what I said.

 

I find it vastly entertaining that our 'new' moderators talk as much trash as everyone else ...

 

Ragu, I want to tone down the tone - I didn't mean to argue so angry-arguer-like. But...I did read the rest of the post, both before I made my own post and again right now.

You wrote:

That whole paragraph is a commentary on how Clinton Portis speaks.

In saying the change "served the story, which wasn't a story about a black athlete who doesn't express himself well enough for your tastes, but was really just a story about the Redskins and what is going on with their running back" - and, also, "the point of those stories in the sports section are not to point out that Clinton Portis doesn't speak the Queen's English" - you implicitly argue that Portis' quote, left unaltered, DOES make the story about a black athlete who doesn't express himself well, who doesn't speak the Queen's English.

But...how? Tell me. I don't get it. Portis expressed himself perfectly - and enjoyably - in the unaltered quote. Why, precisely, do you think the unaltered quote turns the "point of the story" into a commentary on Clinton Portis' grammar?

 

What if the person corrected herself during the conversation? Would have changed if she said "It was the greatest play I've ever saw... I mean, I've ever seen" right away? Would you have used ellipses to skip past the part that the corrected? Would you print it as is? If you would change it right then though, why not change it when they called? It's still their words isn't it? Like if I write a story and send it in, but then re-read it later and realize I spelled a name wrong I call and make sure it gets corrected for later editions.

I think the hard-line stance on not cleaning up a quote fails to take into consideration the conversational nature of some interviews -- which also happen to the best type IMO.