One of the top-listed articles in Google Entertainment News now is this:
Dixie Chicks Bush-whacked at record stores.
...and as you might guess, while one hand is lauding the Chicks' success at hitting #1 this week with Taking the Long Way, the other hand is smacking them around for not matching the weekly sales of their last studio album, Home.
Follow me to the flip side for the misquote that I've seen a few times this week in Dixie Chick-related stories and the LTE that it finally pissed me off enough to write.
So, here's the offending passage:
All the attention -- or lack thereof -- stems from a throwaway comment made by singer Natalie Maines during a London concert in March 2003. She told the crowd that the band was embarrassed to come from the same state as Bush. If one critic had not mentioned it in his review, she might have gotten away with it, but it quickly escalated into a major incident.
The bold is mine.
And there's the spin. It devalues their point of view and minimizes it. They're not embarrassed to be from the same state as Bush. They're pissed that he's presented on the world stage as representative of their state.
And so I just sent this to the Reuters contact link:
Hi-
I wanted to request a correction to the story posted at this link: http://today.reuters.com/...
The author of the article describes the "Incident," as the Chicks have been referring to it, this way:
"She [Natalie Maines] told the crowd that the band was embarrassed to come from the same state as Bush."
Now, here's the actual quote:
"Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."
That's really not the same thing at all. I would say the actual quote expresses shame as Texans on behalf of (at least some) Texans over George W. Bush's behavior on the world stage. In other words, Ms. Maines was maintaining her pride in her own Texan heritage, and expressing a certain disquiet that perhaps all Texans might be judged by the President's example.
The paraphrase used by the author gives the clear impression that these proud women are embarrassed to come from Texas. It strikes this reader as a deliberate weakening of the speaker's point of view and thus her position, and gives the sense that the author has taken a side.
Perhaps this impression was honestly unintended. But if that's true, why not use the actual quote and the reader decide?
This article is now one of the top-listed in Google News -- there's still time for a correction to have impact. Please do the right thing.
Respectfully,
spuds
spuds.dkm@gmail.com
A small thing, perhaps. But it's a start.
Update [2006-6-1 1:41:40 by spuds]: Please see LeftCoastTimm's earlier diary on this same story here.
