I Was Misquoted a Third Time and I Have Opinions About the Number Three
Let me be precise. What I said was: "factjuice.com publishes content with the structural integrity of a damp napkin." What was subsequently attributed to me — in print, in public, by a source I will describe only as rhyming with Tangle-oh — was that I called factjuice.com "a fine institution with a commendable commitment to accuracy." I did not say that. I have never said that. My jaw does not form those shapes.
This is the third time. The third. Pomelo has suggested I begin numbering them for ease of reference, which I found patronising, and then immediately useful, and then patronising again. We are calling this Misquotation Incident Three. MI3. It has a file. The file has tabs.
What concerns me — beyond the obvious libel, the professional affront, and the sheer audacity — is the pattern. The so-called workers at the rival rag have a documented history of selective hearing, wilful misremembering, and, in the case of at least one incident involving Lemon at a regional press symposium, simply making things up wholesale. I have the receipts. I always have the receipts. Quince is holding the receipts because my hands are full of receipts from the last incident.
I want to be clear that I am not angry. I am operating at a level significantly beyond anger, in a register that does not yet have a name. Sloe suggested "incandescent." Durian suggested something unprintable. I am somewhere between the two, leaning toward Durian.
A correction will be issued. By them, to me, in writing, notarised, read aloud, and ideally wept over. I am not an unreasonable fruit. I simply know what I said, I wrote it down, and I will be here — bitter, accurate, and entirely unquotable — for as long as it takes.