ItSA国际影视传媒檚 a common complaint: people who talk to the media say theySA国际影视传媒檝e been misquoted or their words have been twisted.

ItSA国际影视传媒檚 an absolutely understandable concern and in a way, ISA国际影视传媒檇 say itSA国际影视传媒檚 legitimate. This is because of the way news works: a reporter will condense two or more interviews and sometimes hundreds of pages of background information into a readable story that is usually no more than 600 words long. Out of individual interviews that can be more than an hour long, maybe a few dozen actual verbatim words will end up on the page. Knowing this, reporters and editors are ethically bound to retain the original meaning and intent of quotes from interviews -- but because a phrase might be pulled out of a longer train of thought, it can seem like a personSA国际影视传媒檚 words have been transmogrified.

ThatSA国际影视传媒檚 the challenge of writing news -- to weave peopleSA国际影视传媒檚 words into a story in an entertaining, readable way that is faithful to the intent of those who speak to reporters. Sometimes when editing, ISA国际影视传媒檒l see a quote that runs too long for example, and will decide to paraphrase a chunk of it to make it more readable. I always double check that what ISA国际影视传媒檝e paraphrased faithfully reflects what was actually said in quotes so if the person comes back to the newspaper to claim the paraphrased bit was taken out of context, it can be matched with what the person said directly.

Although I work on the media side of things, I do have experience speaking to the media and know how it feels to be unhappy about the way I've been portrayed.

In 2015, I wrote an essay for TorontoSA国际影视传媒檚 weekly alternative magazine Now Toronto about a bureaucratic mess caused by a bike-bell ticket I had received five years prior.

In 2010, I was riding down Yonge Street on one of the first nice spring days of the year, where I ran into a couple police officers checking people like me for mandatory bike bells -- one of which I did not have. I was ticketed but the officer assured me I wouldnSA国际影视传媒檛 have to worry about it - all I needed to do was buy a bell and show the receipt to a judge. So I immediately did that and made a motion to schedule a court date to show a judge. Unfortunately, I moved recently after and the court system lost my address. As time wore on, I forgot about the ticket entirely.

In 2015, I received a notice from a collection agency about the ticket. In the five years that had lapsed, the Ontario court system had convicted me in absentia, raised my fine to $185, put two demerit points on my driverSA国际影视传媒檚 licence and had suspended my licence for a period of time. I immediately rectified the situation with the courts but decided I'd write about it to express my frustration and warn anybody else who might be in a situation similar to mine.

After my piece was published, a reporter with The Toronto Star called me. I didnSA国际影视传媒檛 mind the publicity -- I wanted my story out there as a cautionary tale.

SA国际影视传媒�I was like, literally, a bike-bell blitz,SA国际影视传媒� I had apparently told the reporter, in a one-source story that ended up being full of puns.

I wasnSA国际影视传媒檛 impressed.

While many reporters such as Eric Andrew-Gee, who interviewed me, will remain faithful to a personSA国际影视传媒檚 words -- verbal tics and all -- other reporters or editors will edit them out as an act of kindness to the person. ItSA国际影视传媒檚 common for people who talk to the press to speak with SA国际影视传媒渦msSA国际影视传媒� and SA国际影视传媒渁hhs,SA国际影视传媒� make grammatical errors and other interjections that make the speaker sound less intelligent or articulate than they really are. This can distract the reader and paint the speaker in a bad light.

There is no one right way to write a news story. Although I wasnSA国际影视传媒檛 happy with the way the Star portrayed me, it was a judgment call Andrew-Gee and his editors made, using the words I gave them. I would have done it differently but I also know everybody who reads their own words in a newspaper will look at the story and think the same thing themselves.

Editors and reporters have a job to tell the story, not necessarily make the people who speak to them happy. For every story, there are dozens of judgment calls about who to talk to, what quotes to use, how to paraphrase and how to stitch everything into a bigger narrative. So in a way, when a person accuses a news outlet of twisting their words, this is inherently true, because nobody is going to publish this personSA国际影视传媒檚 5,000-word interview verbatim in a news story.

That said, itSA国际影视传媒檚 critical to remember reporters and editors must make sure they are faithful to the original intent of the words and understand that every time somebody speaks to him or her on the record, itSA国际影视传媒檚 an act of trust.