Media Altering Quotes

[Wikkit]

What is the generally accepted practice regarding altering quotes to change spelling to the local norm? When translating a quote into a different language, it would be understandable to alter the grammar and sentence structure (and obviously spelling) so long as the quote had the same sort of meaning. However, when quoting a text in the language it was written in, isn’t it normal to leave it alone?

If you’re not following the Q, Fark led me to this page from the paper The Times of India who apparently, and unsurprisingly, use british spelling. The quote of the Times of the quote of a report is thus:

"China continues to make progress with its manned programme. The first unmanned test launch occured in November 1999. A second unmanned test flight occurred in January 2001.

“While one of the strongest immediate motivations for this programme appears to be political prestige, China’s manned space efforts will almost certainly will contribute to improved military space systems in the 2010-2020 time frame,” the report adds.

They present the quotes as coming directly from the report, which I thought was odd because I’ve never seen the U.S. Gov. ever use the word ‘programme’. So I searched for the original report, and thanks to the gov’s growing acceptance of the net, found it (in pdf form). Now quoting it directly (pg 33):

China continues to make progress with its manned space program. The first unmanned test
launch occurred in November 1999. A second unmanned test flight occurred in January 2001.
(…) While one of the strongest immediate motivations for this program appears to be political
prestige, China’s manned space efforts almost certainly will contribute to improved military
space systems in the 2010-2020 time frame.

The spelling was changed from ‘program’ to ‘programme’, and they also mis-spelled one of the 'occurred’s.

So, does the non-US media usually ‘correct’ the spelling in quotes from the US, and does the US media ‘correct’ the spelling from the ex-empire? Or does this Indian newspaper not have a net connection and they had to transcribe the quote by telephone, without thinking about spelling?

[Acsenray]

I am a journalist in the United States. The general interest publications I have worked for (such as newspapers) generally have a policy that all spellings are changed to fit our stylebook (which means “American” spellings when there is such a difference). So we write “Labor party” even when the party in question is British. And we alter spellings to American forms when quoting directly from documents. (They also correct typos and inadvertant misspellings.)

 However, the publications I have worked for that are specifically for the legal profession generally have a policy of quoting exactly as it was given in the original, even if it contains errors (adding "[sic]" where appropriate).

[dantheman]

U.S. publications generally change the spelling of words to fit their style (organization from organisation, e.g.), even in quotes. Of course, the misspelling of “occurred” in that quote is an actual misspelling, not a style change.

[RedNaxela]

What acsenray and dantheman said. Just to add, though, that according to the Chicago Manual of Style (14th ed.), section 10.7, this practice is incorrect:

Direct quotations must reproduce exactly not only the wording but the spelling, capitalization, and internal punctuation of the original, except that single quotation marks may be changed to double, and double to single… and commas or periods appearing outside the closing quotation mark may be moved inside.

(They also go on to make certain other exceptions, such as that minor typos may be corrected without notice.)

Admittedly, though, this is a difficult rule to follow, as it makes it harder for the proofreaders to catch mistakes. I work part-time as a copy editor, and I find it easier to ignore this rule; and I suspect that most other publishing firms take the same view.