General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Eric Adams: "You can only question me if you wore a bulletproof vest" [View all]MineralMan
(146,262 posts)When you alter quotations with deception of any kind in mind, you destroy your own credibility. That's why such things are taken so seriously by legitimate publications. Verifying quotes is part of the job of fact-checking. Nobody wants to misquote someone.
If you rephrase something someone else said, but put your rephrased statement between quotation marks, you are being deceptive, even if you don't think you changed the meaning. And, in this case, truncating what was actually said and changing the wording of it definitely changed the meaning.
I don't know what you do for a living, but I have been a full-time journalist since 1974. I take that shit seriously. My writings have appeared in a number of magazines with 7-figure circulations since that time and up until I retired from magazine writing.
You are wrong to misquote people. Just leave the quotation marks out. That signals that you are rephrasing someone else's words. I see you have still not edited your OP. You should.