Jamid Laiq's original two-sentence letter:
If there was true justice in this world, Bush and Saddam should have been hanged together. Both of them ordered the deaths of lakhs of innocents.
This short letter was "polished up" by the Hindu's editorial staff, and it was published in this form:
If the ends of justice are to be really met, how can Mr. Bush go unpunished? He too ordered actions that led to the killing of innocent people.
The Readers' Editor uses his column to discuss the limits on the editors' right to mangle non-ghost-written pieces (including letters to the editor).
When he asked the Hindu's editor-in-chief about this particular letter, he confessed, "... I think we should have dumped that letter instead of trying to sanitise it and save it for publication!
2 Comments:
great. so the choice is between a possible mangled version of your voice or no voice at all for the "common man" with the Hindu...
You raise important issues - and write on so many different topics with equal ease.
Liked this pos, being a writer and journalist myself.
It's because of editing like this that we don't get to see in the news what we should be seeing.
farrukh
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