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posted by janrinok on Saturday May 23 2015, @06:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the mea-culpa dept.

Janrinok writes:

Apology To Microsoft

On Friday, we published a story, submitted by sigma, alleging that Microsoft had attempted to blackmail the UK Government in order to prevent the adoption of UK policy supporting open document standards. Having looked more closely at the linked material provided, the word blackmail is not used but appears only in the submission that we received. As the editor of that particular story I am personally responsible for not having checked the sources sufficiently well and for subsequently releasing the story. I wish to apologise, publicly and unreservedly, for any suggestion that Microsoft attempted to blackmail the UK government. They did not, nor does the accusation stand up to any scrutiny. We have edited the title to prevent any further misunderstanding by our community or others and I hope that this action and my apology to Microsoft is sufficient to atone for my mistake.

Apology to sigma

The editor's role includes that of trying to look at each story from both sides to provide a balanced approach. We are not here to support one particular view in preference to another but to provide material that will inspire discussion between members of our community. I published the story that sigma submitted, but attempted to balance it with the alternative view that suggested it was not specifically a Microsoft trait to defend one's business and that it could be argued that they were also attempting to protect their British workforce. However, I did not make it clear where sigma's comments ended and where my editing began, although I did add an Editor's Comment explaining that the story had been edited and that not all comments were those of the submitter. sigma has, quite justifiably, objected to this action and I must, therefore, apologise to him personally. I do apologise to sigma, again publicly and unreservedly, for any changes that I made to the submission that he feels reflect badly upon him.

Our Role

This was most certainly not my best piece of work and, of course, I must also apologise to the community. The editors do, however, have to edit stories; members of the community should not expect their submissions to be a platform for their personal views. Some stories require more editing than others to be suitable for the front page. In this instance, I made a mistake. We will always try to find a balanced approach to any story that needs it, as described in the Editing Process.

As I have already said, I take full responsibility for the stories that I release, including the one arising from sigma's submission. We value each and every submission, even those that do not make it to publication however, we do ask that submitters do not suggest events or actions that are not backed up by the source material, or are not easily verifiable by other means.

janrinok
Editor

 
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Saturday May 23 2015, @06:55PM

    by opinionated_science (4031) on Saturday May 23 2015, @06:55PM (#186928)

    thesaurus? Google the UK show "Have I got news for you", the word is "allegedly"....

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  • (Score: 2) by n1 on Saturday May 23 2015, @07:05PM

    by n1 (993) on Saturday May 23 2015, @07:05PM (#186931) Journal

    As someone residing in Britain for most of my life, I am very aware of HIGNFY and actually caught up on the latest episodes last night!

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by wantkitteh on Saturday May 23 2015, @09:06PM

      by wantkitteh (3362) on Saturday May 23 2015, @09:06PM (#186968) Homepage Journal

      Could we use a tub of lard as an editor?

      • (Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Monday May 25 2015, @09:44AM

        by wantkitteh (3362) on Monday May 25 2015, @09:44AM (#187562) Homepage Journal

        Obviously someone doesn't know of the infamous incident when Paul Merton's guest didn't show up and had to be replaced; no person could be found at such short notice to fill the seat, so they didn't use a person. At the end of the show, Ian Hislop commented that he couldn't beat Paul even when his partner was a tub of lard.

    • (Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:07PM

      by opinionated_science (4031) on Saturday May 23 2015, @11:07PM (#186989)

      wait for "Have I got more...." a few days later...