The Guardian’s readers’ editor has upheld a complaint from
intellectual Naom Chomsky that he was misrepresented in what he called
a “fake”
interview by Emma Brockes.
Ian Mayes said Brockes
was wrong to claim Chomsky put the word massacre in inverted commas
when referring to the killings at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war.
Mayes also said that the headline used in the interview was misleading.
It
read: “Q: Do you regret supporting those who say the Srebrenica
massacre was exaggerated? A: My only regret is that I didn’t do it
strongly enough”.
Mayes said: “No question in that form was put to Professor Chomsky…
the headline was wrong and unjustified by the text.”
The Guardian has now withdrawn the interview from its website.
In
an open letter to The Guardian published on his website this week,
Chomsky said that the print version of the article (which he had only
just seen) “obviously took careful planning and work, to construct an
exercise in defamation that is a model of the genre”.
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
