[Verger99]

A journo tells us we can't believe journos , but he's a journo , and , uh ,...

Ignoring the rest of that post (which makes about as much sense as the Daily Mail article), allow me to explain how I differ from the journalist who twisted Webber's words so much.

During the time I ran my BTCC website I ran well over a hundred full-length interviews along with countless post-race comments. I still have the transcript of every single one, and in many cases the tape or minidisc. My ethics meant that every time I quoted a driver or team member I did so word-for-word (occasionally cleaning up their grammar), and always respected the times when they were talking off the record. Occasionally I'd need to clarify what was meant so I would phone or email the interviewee before publishing. Over the course of five years I got contacted one time by one driver to correct a small factual inaccuracy in their profile, I made the necessary correction within five minutes of receiving his email. I could look any of the drivers in the eye and promise them that they would be treated fairly, but that didn't mean that I would kiss their arses: when they screwed up I would write that they'd screwed up.

What I would find is that occasionally a driver would give an interview or a briefing to a bunch of us at the same time, and sometimes you would read an article in another publication a few days later and find it hard to believe that the journalist was listening to the same words coming out of his mouth. This may have been led by the publication's editorial policy; it may have been a journalist with a bias or trying to make a name for himself; it may have just been sloppy work - I don't know.

It frustrates me greatly when journalists or their editors cherry-pick one tiny aspect of an interview and blow it up out of all proportion, especially when they are in a position to influence peoples' opinion. My poor old dad, bless him, reads the Daily Express out of habit and because he doesn't know any better; and as a result has a grossly distorted view of most of the F1 paddock. Sensationalist gibberish like that article in the Mail dangerously misrepresents the view of a well-respected driver like Mark Webber, making him appear bitter and paranoid when in fact he's merely voicing a perfectly reasonable concern about driving standards. I can't blame him for being angry, and would well understand if he refused to give any more interviews to the British press as a result.