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

Best advice here is makes copies of the columns you filed -- your draft and the final printed result. Make copies of the e-mails, including dates. Call and ask for a meeting with whoever is in charge -- executive editor, publisher, ME, whatever. Give him the whole mess, and inform him you will no longer work for them until assurances are made this will not happen again.

And let them know if the situation is not resolved to your satisfaction, you will be forwarding the material to Poynter, Romanesko and SPJ for them to peruse.

As other have pointed out, this is petty and unprofessional. I agree, it's a firing offense.

 

Heh. The lawsuit was nothing, costing all those j.v. players scholarships has wounded me deeply.

 

Only a fifth. Best was when he got lost between the liquor store and the office one day and some old lady came in helping him into the news room. This was a month and a half into the job, and he stayed another 12 months.

 

Wow, I know I'm late to the party for this but, damn, iceman, I feel for you.

Thinking that ANY editor would do that is just disgusting. I can't add much to the advice -- what others have given you on here is sold. So, I'll just say, please, make a stink about this. If you care at all about the readers of this particular publication -- make a stink, raise a fuss. They deserve a hell of a lot better than what this editor is doing to the product they're buying.

 

I can't imagine what an editor is thinking, doing something like that.

At my first newspaper job out of college, I wrote a small article on a group's attempt to get a monument erected to honor black troops who fought for the Union in the Civil War. The story was short, mostly about the history of black Union troops in the area and quotes from the person leading the charge. When I read my story in the paper, there was an addition in the story about how a lot of blacks also fought for the Confederacy against the Union and were often mistreated by Union soldiers worse than their own slave owners. There wasn't even any attribution. When I looked at the story history, the managing editor was the only other person to edit the story besides me. This was a small paper (which I didn't stay at long), but I expected better than that. Don't know if he's still at the paper, but I really hope this was an isolated incident.

 

I really want to hear how this ends. Please let us know.

 

I'll echo BB's comment. I'm definitely curious to know the end to the story. Hope it ends well for you. Please keep us posted.

 

Where was this paper located? South of the Mason-Dixon Line?

 

I'm trying to put myself in the editor's shoes and figure out what would make him do this. I'm coming up with nothing.

 

Looks like this ended with everyone taking the high road...

Basically said I'd keep writing for them, since I've enjoyed done it for years and didn't want to walk away if things could be resolved, but I wouldn't stop being an honest critic and I wanted my altered columns removed from the web. Powers that be said they're fine with that and my columns as originally written will be posted.

All in all, a good outcome except for those who saw my stuff during the past couple of months and wondered what my coffee was spiked with. One key thing is, after that initial and rather inconceivable e-mail from my editor, everybody basically kept their heads and didn't blow things up into all-out war (years ago I might have done a bit of screaming, but I'm getting too wise or lazy in my old age). It's sad how often that doesn't happen in so many situations these days.

 

If that's the case, that's absolutely inexcusable.