Erroneous editing

Having written to your letters column quite a bit recently, I have noticed quite a lot of editing work which doesn't suit me at all. I agree that an editors's job is to edit all the letters and articles coming in for incorrect grammar, but he should not change the content of a letter unnecessarily.

To my irritation, very often the editor has doctored a whole paragraph or sentence without taking into account the damaging effect this may have on the letter as a whole. Quite often this practice has rendered a sentence nonsensical or contextually inappropriate. Sometimes these indiscriminate changes are not corrections of grammar, but are stylistic amendments which may change the intended tone of the letter.

In my last letter (The Jakarta Post, June 4), I did not write " ... and all similar pornographic films, which basically give a bad education to our young generation" (third paragraph), but instead, " ... and all those films which basically give sex education to our younger generation". I don't see why my original version was altered, and anyone with common sense will instantly see that the revised version is not in keeping with the tone of the letter.

Another example, which was perhaps caused by negligence, is from one of my previous letters. The letter said: "Sometimes I wonder how a very low-profile nation with a low (silent) leader can attract so much attention..." Imagine me calling His Holiness Dalai Lama a low leader! In fact, what I wrote was ..." with a low-profile (silent) leader". You can see how one simple mistake can completely distort the writers' intended meaning and needlessly irritate him or her in the process.

Does the Post have a native-speaking editor? If you do, then I think you need more. I'm sure that I am not the only one to have suffered at the hands of your overeager, or maybe overworked editor. For your information, I have heard many complaints from native speaker friends about badly written or perhaps badly translated articles and sometimes even the headlines are a source of bewilderment or amusement to them.

Please take my nasty grumbling seriously, since I have become quite an avid reader of your newspaper. And I have no wish to see The Jakarta Post tarnish its generally good reputation with easily avoidable inaccuracies.

RAHAYU RATNANINGSIH

Jakarta

Note: Thank you for your comments. It is not our intention to distort anyone's opinions. Some of the mistakes you refer to are our responsibility while others are the result of unclear fax transmissions. We apologize for this and promise to do our best to avoid such unfortunate incidents in the future. --Editor