How to handle columns altered "to get back at you"

Document everything, including your conversations, dates and times.

Get your version of the story if possible and the printed version.

Then go on the warpath to the highest levels. If anyone supports the editor and leaves you hanging then find someplace else to work.

 

Leave the free-lance gig, print out the emails and take the story to Poynter. Seriously. This is in the same category as libel.

 

I wouldn't just pack up my shit and go. If you've done nothing wrong here -- and if these are all the facts, you haven't -- then why should you lose income?

Just take the emails and the different versions of the columns to whoever the hell is in charge at that place and let them know what's going on. If they chose not to do anything, then pack up. And put all the shit on here and at Poynter.

But I wouldn't lose money just to take a stand over one dipshit editor.

 

If your editor doesn't get fired for this, I would kick the living shit out of him.

That is about as unprofessional as you can get.

 

Iceman is prideofpleasantville?

 

Are we dealing with a magazine or newspaper here?

Not that it matters, altering columns for the reason given is BS, but I have a feeling we're not dealing with a newsroom here, but something along the lines of a freelancer working for a smaller-staffed mag. That makes a difference as the editor making the decision might have one or maybe no higher-ups to answer to.

 

What the editor did was beyond-the-pale. If it's a column with your name on it, it's an extension of you. Screwing with your words out of malice is at least a firing offense, if not legally actionable.

But, to open a small can of snarky-butt on you: If you're going to pretend that your words or opinion have any value at all, perhaps it's time that you began acting as though they do. Blowing deadlines. Not reading your own stuff. Do you really give a shit?

That makes it a little difficult to get all sanctimonious, now.

 

There's been some good advice here, so thanks. Whatever else happens, I've decided I need to walk away from this because I have no desire to write fanboy material in future columns. Beyond that I'll likely let the powers that be know why I'm quitting and let them do what they will.

Oggiedoggie: Agree some of this is on me. Excuses are just that, so I'm not offering any. As with most disputes, nobody's 100 percent angel or Satan's spawn. But getting level-headed advice is generally better than whatever initial reaction anger might provoke.

 

So if you're writing non-fanboy material, does flipping it make it fanboy material in the end?

If you work on a Mac, the original column should be cached in your document folder.

 

I had an editor who inserted errors into my copy because he drank a fifth of Jack before he came into work.

I'd keep climbing the ladder until you get a favorable result. If not the publisher, than the regional publisher. I'd demand an apology printed. To me, this is on par with plagiarism.

 

Just a fifth?