THE GUARDIAN RESPONDS TO PRINCE "MISQUOTES"

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Thread started 06/28/11 8:45pm

salaciousV

THE GUARDIAN RESPONDS TO PRINCE "MISQUOTES"

Thought I would start a separate thread so that ya'll can see "the other side of the story" since Dr. Funkenberry seems to be one-sided.

From a post within "The Guardian Interview - No Plans to record another album" http://prince.org/msg/7/3...ther-album

I'm Michael Hann, the editor of the Guardian's Film&Music section – been waiting five days since registering to be able to post. The main point – about the perils of translating and retranslating – was made on Dr Funkenberry's board. The second part of my post there looks a bit odd at the top of this thread, and I see some people upthread are querying it. It was, specifically, a response to someone on the other board who suggested the Guardian had deliberately taken the agenda of another board, presumably this one.No insult to the members of this board was intended when I said the Guardian's editorial line is not taken from messageboards. For the record, I am not suggesting Le Parisien's interview is necessarily inaccurate; I suspect most of the differences will have come from the translation back into English. Some general points: 1/ Did the Guardian make a sensation of the interview? Well, yes: but only because Prince said sensational things. Had he not ventured, of his own free will, on to controversial subjects, then there would have been no sensation. 2/ Is the Guardian prone to lying and manipulation? No. Well, I would say that, wouldn't I? But the Guardian is not a paper that makes things up. We have an editorial code of conduct which you can view on our website, and we correct errors promptly because of the existence of our readers' editor, an ombudsman for our journalism. 3/ Did the Guardian take the "craziest" things for the interview? I gave Dorian no instruction on what to write, confident that a writer of his trustworthiness and diligence would deliver the best possible piece. I had agreed to a list of subjects that Prince would and would not talk about beforehand, but Prince's management – astonishingly – did not send anyone in to babysit Prince during the interview (which, sadly, is standard practice in big star interviews) to make sure he kept to the point. He did not keep to the point. That is the responsibility of Prince and his management: it is not for an interviewer to tell him he's not meant to talk about something. We didn't take the craziest things, we took the most interesting things. That's what newspapers do and always have done and always will. Everything Prince said to us was on the record. I am happy to answer any points to which I can give an answer.

From Dr. Funkenberry.com These were posted on his comments on the "Theres 2 sides 2 every story" thread.

Dorian Lynskey
June 27th, 2011 - 07:31

Hi. I did the Guardian interview and had no sinister agenda at all. In fact I almost left out the line about burqas because I thought it might take too much attention from the rest of the piece (which it did), although this French Q&A also misrepresents that part of the conversation because the “How can you stop people dressing” bit was in response to a follow-up question about the French burqa ban, not about muslim countries.

Inevitably with two people taking longhand notes (one of whom is doing an interview in his second language) there will be differences. Some of the French version is definitely wrong – it was clearly “loving tyrant” not “I love being a tyrant”, for example. Equally, I can’t say for sure that I didn’t mishear or mistranscribe a few words. I wish I could have recorded it and checked every word myself. But nothing was deliberately fabricated. Please don’t assume that there has to be some weird agenda behind everything.

Michael Hann
June 28th, 2011 - 09:14

Hi,
I’m the editor who commissioned the piece from Dorian. There’s a further issue that explains the indisputable differences between the Guardian’s interview and Le Parisien’s. Not only has their interview been conducted in a second language, and then translated into the writer’s mother tongue, it’s then been further translated back into English for the version that appears above. Anyone who’s ever played the game where you use web translation tools to take a favourite song lyric, translate it into another language, then back into English knows that the final result is unlikely to bear much relation to the original.
By the way, YouNowWho and Friend, there is of course no circumstance in which a newspaper with an international readership in the tens of millions would compromise its journalism by taking an editorial line from a group of people on a fan site. It just doesn’t happen. As Dorian says, there was no agenda: we at the Guardian were as surprised as anyone by what he had to say.

[Edited 7/18/11 14:57pm]

sweething	Really, why is this news...I mean, really?
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steakfinger	OzlemUcucu said: This issue is not dealt accurately, and I feel sorry for everyone! I'm sure however, Prince doesn't give a fuck about you idiots! [Edited 6/28/11 21:04pm] And I can assure you, he gives not one fuck about your ass, either. Also, you're wrong AND a total idiot.
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alfbo	The quote from the editor who commissioned the piece doesn't make any sense. Sounds like he's blaming the org for the controversy? The writer of the article says that the burqa line was messed up in the version that printed. So why is the editor saying something different?
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Timmy84	toejam said: And of course all of this could be settled if Prince allowed journalists to record interviews. It only makes it more suspicious that he doesn't... Wanna believe he did this in purpose for the concerts? But why would he bring attention when he's in another country performing? Don't make sense. Then again, this is Prince we're talking about. Nothing's clear with him.
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