Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Did Globe edit Turner Report out of comment?

I was a bit surprised when I was checking the reader comments on The Joplin Globe website about Missouri Speaker of the House Rod Jetton's visit to Neosho and found my own words staring back at me.
In the comment from "Retired and Disabled," the following is shown:

Example: State Rep. Bryan Stevenson, R-Webb City, representative of each person in his legislative district, told the poorest of them, hey, if you can't afford medical care, you don't deserve it. Stevenson was quoted in a recent article in St. Louis Post-Dispatch as saying, "People have come to think there's an entitlement to medicine. If I don't pay my electric bill, they cut it off. If I don't pay my water bill, they cut it off. Yet as a society, we expect medical care." Stevenson, of course, has plenty of money to cover his medical needs, including taxpayer-financed health insurance for legislators, which he voted to continue at the same time he was happily going along with cuts to Medicaid.

This is what was written in The Turner Report:

State Rep. Bryan Stevenson, R-Webb City, representative of each person in his legislative district, told the poorest of them, hey, if you can't afford medical care, you don't deserve it. Stevenson was quoted in an article in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch as saying, "People have come to think there's an entitlement to medicine. If I don't pay my electric bill, they cut it off. If I don't pay my water bill, they cut it off. Yet as a society, we expect medical care." Stevenson, of course, has plenty of money to cover his medical needs, including taxpayer-financed health insurance for legislators, which he voted to continue at the same time he was happily going along with cuts to Medicaid.

The only difference is the change from "today's" St. Louis Post Dispatch in my version to "a recent article" in St. Louis Post-Dispatch in the Globe comment version.
Perhaps I am wrong, but I have a strong feeling that it wasn't "Retired and Disabled" who used my writing without giving credit. I would guess that whoever that person is, he or she mentioned The Turner Report, but The Globe, which has had no qualms about following the lead of this blog on many of its articles (without ever crediting the source) had that part removed.

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