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Reader complains to IPSO after weekly edits his letter

ipso-green-320A reader whose letter was edited by a Sunday newspaper complained to the press watchdog about the amendment.

Tony Moran complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that Bedfordshire on Sunday breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice by amending his letter about a new commercial venture.

The published version of the letter stated “with any luck I shall arrange things so that I shall never gaze on the new bridge on the riverside, which is hideous.”

Mr Moran said that in the letter he submitted for publication, he had used a colloquialism to indirectly refer to the new commercial venture by the riverside in Bedford, but that the newspaper had replaced this phrase with the reference to the new bridge in the published version.

He also raised concern about other alterations the newspaper had made to his letter.

In response, BoS said that the colloquialism that the complainant had used in the letter he had submitted could carry a meaning such as to require further substantiation.

It had removed the phrase to ensure safe publication, and replaced it with a direct reference to the new bridge, which is what it believed the complainant was writing about.

Following IPSO’s intervention the newspaper offered to republish a version of Mr Moran’s letter with a direct reference to the commercial venture by the riverside.

No determination was made on whether there had been a breach of Code.

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