A LETTER TO THE EDITOR: When is a letter to the editor actually a letter to the editor?

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Launceston City Council

THE Launceston City Council’s recent meeting to present its annual report was a complete farce. 

The Thursday prior to the meeting at the Town Hall had run out of annual general meeting reports. 

The meeting was scheduled to start at 5.30pm ``tea time” and many ratepayers had not even left work. 

This is an old ``trick”, call meetings at meal times if you don’t want many to attend. 

Only seven out of 12 alderman attended, just enough for a quorum and about six ratepayers ``what a crowd”. 

The rules of meetings only allow two minutes for questions and two minutes to speak on an issue, totally inadequate. 

Where has transparency gone in local government? — BASIL FITCH, Launceston.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This letter is interesting as it seems that The Examiner has 'edited' it without Mr. Fitch's approval. Mr. Fitch's original letter contained a paragraph quoting the General Manager Robert Dobrzynski, from The Examiner (Dec10 2015) ... "we do not answer questions at public meetings because people do not come out to public meetings" ... this paragraph has been removed. Why?

Apparently, Robert Dobrzynski does not accept the quote attributed to him but the Examiner has it seems. Anyway, the paper has not printed a retraction nor an explanation. If Mr Dobrzynski contacted the Examiner to complain it might have been reasonable for the paper to publish something as a consequence but it seems it has not. 

How would Mr Fitch know unless the Examiner had told him that they'd made a mistake? It remains an open question as to wether or not they did make a mistake it seems.

To 'correct, alter or remove' an important component of a letter submitted to the editor, would that represent a breach of the writer's moral rights under Australian copyright law?  Would it change its meaning? To do so without contacting the author, would not that be discourteous at the very least? Would doing so be a breach of his moral rights as an author? Is any of this anything to do with "industry standard"?

There's a notion that newspaper editors can change peoples letters to them. Well yes they can, and yes they do, BUT it seems that while editors, collectively weren't looking, perhaps things changed back in Y2000.

Copyright law changed in Y2000 to protect the 'Moral Rights Of The Author".  What are these rights?

1 The right to be identified as the author of their work – that is, the right of attribution;
2 The right not to have a person falsely assert or imply that they are the author of a work – the right not to have authorship falsely attributed;
3 The right not to have their work subjected to derogatory treatment which is prejudicial to their honour or reputation – the right of integrity of authorship.

It's an interesting issue to ponder on 'Australia Day' with the new Australian Of The Year being a champion of 'standards', inclusiveness and not to mention 'change' too.

Are we about to see some standard setting that might make the odd decision maker blush a little or even a lot?