by Rachel Smith
18 April 2018
What do you do when you’ve been hired as the professional writer but you have to liaise with presenters, or interview experts, who then re-write your entire piece? I recently had a situation where I let an expert look over the copy before I filed it to my client. They rewrote many of their own quotes to make themselves look / sound more polished! What do others do in this situation with interviewees? L
This depends entirely on the client and their policy. On entertainment or real life titles especially, most editors would rake you over hot coals if you dared to let interviewees catch even a glimpse of the final copy, for fear they’d try and change their quotes or pull out of the story altogether. As you might expect, the percentage who request copy approval or even try to make it a dealbreaker in the interview negotiation process is HUGE.
That said, with corporate clients and experts it can be a bit different. I have to send copy to experts a lot, particularly on medical stories, as it’s actually written into the contract that I double-check their quotes before filing the story. I’ve been lucky so far; most of the experts I’ve interviewed and had to show copy to are just too busy to barely scan it, and haven’t ever changed much – maybe a word here or there. But I have heard of others who have had their story butchered because they sent the copy over as a courtesy and if that happens, it leaves you in a very tricky position.
In your case, there probably isn’t a lot you can do now. Unless you try to salvage the situation by putting the expert in his/her place – thanking them for their ‘re-write’ and saying that while you like some of their turns of phrases / style, what you had actually agreed to was factual changes – ha! Not sure how that would go down, though…
For future situations like this, one way to minimise the damage (especially if you suspect someone you’re dealing with is an ego-maniac, or frustrated wannabe journalist) is to only send sections of the story the expert is quoted in, or even just the bare-bottom quotes themselves with no context copy. Without the whole thing to scrutinise, the urge to re-write is reduced (well, I like to hope so).
You can also offer to simply read it back to them over the phone – an old trick Leo told me she picked up from writing That’s Life first person stories. If you don’t have it in writing in your hot little hand, it’s much harder to get your red pen out!
Oh and going forward I’d definitely nail down what the client’s policy is around copy approval at the start of the project. You could save yourself a lot of hassle if they’re happy for you to file without having to go back to the ‘talent’ at all.
Do you often have to give copy approval in your work? What are your tips for minimising the often inevitable edits and changes?
Ah yes reading it over the phone is a good idea. I recently had an expert interviewee only agree to go ahead if I would email them their quotes (because they’d had a bad experience with another publication). I forgot I could promise to do it over the phone instead!
As a rule, (IF I agreed to send the story), I would make sure I specify that I can only make alterations to any factual inaccuracies as the publication has specific tone/style guidelines that need to be met. Otherwise, I would usually say that I can only send a PDF out to them once it hits the shelves.
Obviously, it’s a good idea to send some sensitive topics back for checking (medical experts etc) but I would still specify that only factual accuracies can be altered. I’m relieved that I haven’t come across any tricky situations as yet.
Sending only relevant sections is a good idea!