It's been sort of funny watching Oprah struggle with the meaning of truth, and watching the entire publishing industry on edge waiting to adopt her meaning. But it's really such a sad commentary on our culture. This is another pathetic episode. According to National Journal's Technology Daily:
Aides to New York gubernatorial candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld altered newspaper articles on the his Web site, the New York Times reports. The aides significantly edited published newspaper articles to portray the Republican in a more favorable light. They removed references to his past political problems and to a federal investigation of Decker College, a school in Kentucky he left last year to campaign for governor in New York. The articles were placed in the news section of Weld's site, containing their original bylines and no references to the alterations. Weld's campaign officials have defended the practice. "We don't think using excerpts is uncommon," said Dominick Ianno, a campaign spokesman. "It's regularly in advertising, movie reviews, book reviews and other promotional materials."
It's only because our culture has so devalued truth that Weld's aides can get away with not only doing this, but defending the practice.
This problem is only going to get bigger as technology makes it easier to rip, mix and burn. And it is a downside of the push against DRM-- if the newspapers had locked their articles in code, or signed them with a digital signature, Weld may not have been able to edit them. We want people to be able to remix, but there are certain remixes that are not beneficial. This element of this debate needs to be addressed as well.