Verbal Adding

Masha Gessen has posted a comment on the version of her Moscow Times article (headed "Verbal Padding Softens the Blow", and devoted to the subjects of Beslan and Hurricane Katrina) that I posted here last week. She writes:

Hi. This is pretty silly, but please note that this text, published under my byline in the Moscow Times, has little in common with the copy I actually submitted. The paper has since apologized and re-posted the original column as written by me (the point of it is quite different). Please see it at themoscowtimes.com or at livejournal.com/users/gessen. I would appreciate it if you could remove this copy from your site, as I didn't write anything of the sort. Thank you.

09.11.05 - 7:00 am

The post is now deleted. Again - the original version of Masha Gessen's article, which is available on her own website, can be read here.

Somewhat to its credit, the Moscow Times has reposted the original column (without the editorial additions that distort its point, especially in the conclusion), though the complete text is only available to paid subscribers.

For the purposes of clarification, both texts may be compared here.

P.S. Readers of this blog may recall that back in July a Beslan-related article by Yulia Latynina appeared in two radically different forms: the English language version that was published in Moscow Times bore little relation to the original Russian column that appeared in Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal. The English version was substantially cut and altered.