To the Editor:

I wish to register my objection to your publishing without permission from the editor or publisher of The River Reporter, a reprint of the article "'Legalized lynching' enrages activists" by Tom Rue in the October 15th Independent Weekly Review.

If a writer gives you a story, it becomes your story, which allows you to edit it in any way you please. It should not be labeled as a River Reporter reprint. This is a violation of copyright, particularly since you did not in fact publish a true reprint but made many emendations. The most egregious one served to alter the meaning of the article, and you used this altered meaning to serve your own ends in your editorial. The word "lynching" appeared in quotes in The River Reporter's headline, but not in your reprint. You then said in your editorial, "The River Reporter used the racial term "lynching" to describe the content of the confrontation." The term "lynching" was not The River Reporter's word, as the quote marks made clear; it was used by Roy Parker of Monticello at the October 7th village meeting, as the story duly reported.

Your editorial might have thanked The River Reporter for reporting Jesse York's remarks. As you point out in your editorial, none of the other local news media did so. You certainly did not shrink from naming this newspaper when scolding it, as you did several times, but did not make clear that the "one" in your statedment, "Yet all but one failed to print York's remarks" was indeed The River Reporter. You then followed this statement with the non sequitur, "Thus, none of them accurately reported the event." That is not true. The River Reporter accurately reported the event.

I ask that you publish this letter in your next issue so that your readers understand how the article originally appeared.

Sincerely, PAMELA CHERGOTIS Editor, River Reporter

Related letter here.

CORRECTION Monticello Police Officer Gerard Dietz has never arrested a Bureau Chief of The Times Herald-Record. That was incorrectly reported in the October 17 issue of the Independent Weekly Review. Mr. Rue in fact submitted the same article which appeared in The River Reporter reptinted in this paper on the Tuesday morning after the Monticello Village Meeting. I believe I had a right to reprint it and attribute the article to that newspaper. However, I accept responsibility for the missed quotations in the reprint of the headline and apologize for the error. -SHK

Independent Weekly Review, Monticello, NY, 10-22-1996