Wordblog

The habit of public figures trying to wriggle out of an embarrassing comment by claiming "I was misquoted" has become suddenly more dangerous. The Guardian’s response to England cricket captain’s claim that he had not used the word "Fredalo" was to put an audio extract of the interview on the web.

The story began in March when the England XI had a disastrous World Cup in the West Indies, both on and off the pitch. One of the stories was about a drunken incident when Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff had to be rescued after his pedalo capsized.

In an interview published in the Guardian on Tuesday the captain, Michael Vaughan, was quoted saying: "The Fred-alo incident did affect the team. It did affect morale. Those incidents are bound to affect team spirit. Suddenly you’ve got players who have no freedom left. I like to see players enjoy themselves but no one would dare go out after that incident - and you can’t create any spirit then. That incident changed the whole atmosphere in the camp."

Yesterday, Vaughan complained he had been misquoted. He said: "One word changed the whole complexion of the article - a word that I didn’t say." Asked what the word was he said: "I think it’s Fredalo. I never used that word, no - I was certainly not pinpointing anyone. Me and Freddie are good mates and unfortunately it has been blown out of all proportion."

The Guardian responded by putting an audio extract from the interview on the web in which Vaughan is clearly heard saying "Fredalo".

While journalists do misquote people one of the hazards of the job has been the false accusation of misquoting. It was often a matter of one person’s word against another’s and some of the mud stuck to journalism as a whole.

The web now enables a paper to respond in an utterly convincing way by letting the readers hear the actual words, provided the interview was recorded.

This brings me to another thorny issue — people refusing to talk to journalists but offering to answer questions by email. If Vaughan had done this, and the paper had agreed, he would have had time to think and would probably have not used the word "Fredalo".

In this we have a good example of a real interview revealing what someone thinks rather than what they want the world to believe they think. Yet there are journalists promoting the idea of email "interviews", among them Guardian media columnist and journalism professor at New York City University, Jeff Jarvis. He describes email as a technology to "improve the interview".

Another journalism professor, Jay Rosen, of New York University, has been quoted saying interviews have been an exercise in unequal power between the writer and the submissive subject.

Public figures from soap stars to politicians have long sought to control their image by laying down conditions for interviews. Encouraging them does readers, listeners and viewers no service. The Vaughan interview has shed light on the performance of the England XI which could only be obtained through a real interview.