Posted on 07/23/2008 9:58:53 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
The Columbia Journalism Review has a maddeningly sloppy and incomplete, but also interesting and informative article about how the Maliki remarks came to be translated so differently by the New York Times and Der Spiegel. It turns out that, not only did Der Spiegel rewrite the critical passage without telling anyone, it also rewrote the whole interview, while pretending that it was a verbatim exchange.
The piece quotes Der Spiegel’s second version of the remarks (the author of the piece seems blissfully unaware of the first version) and then the New York Times translation, and notes the differences:
How come that version is so different from Der Spiegel’s version?
“His original words were unprintable. It would have been embarrassing to him. So we edited it,” says Müller von Blumencron. “There are very few people you can do a Q&A with without editing for grammar. And you always have to make it shorter.”
Quite true. As any journalist could tell you, if a printed interview transcript reads like a punchy exchange, with each sentence a complete thought and each paragraph well formed, odds are someone has done a lot of tweaking to help the direct transcription along. But extreme care must be taken not to distort the speaker’s original meaning.
The editor’s hand gives any claim of misrepresentation a little credence—especially if there’s translation involved too.
(Excerpt) Read more at patterico.com ...
“His original words were unprintable. It would have been embarrassing to him. So we edited it,” says Müller von Blumencron. “There are very few people you can do a Q&A with without editing for grammar. And you always have to make it shorter.”
*****
Another example of leftists lying to themselves.
The man they love to criticize for his inarticulateness, has verbatim transcripts on his website ::: whitehouse.gov
You can read along while listening to a Q&A on TV. They are identical.
The fact that they will not release the tape of the interview tells me all I need to know here.
bm
The Obamassiah speaks in tongues too!
More lies and dishonesty from the media. I can’t imagine that anyone believes anything these people say anymore.
Who cares what Maliki thinks? I don’t recall MacArthur giving two shits about when the post-war Japanese government wanted U.S. troops to leave.
The real news is that the NYT got something right.
“Journalistic ethics” = oxymoron
The Obamassiah speaks in tongues too!
Obama has be pushing this 16 month troop pull out for 3 years. Sooner or later he's going to be right, but it's the same kind of right that a broken clock has twice a day. Obama's plan would have had troops out by 2007 or early 2008. Malaki is saying 2010. Not the same thing.
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