Blunted knives

Having been on the wrong end of a piece of journalism last month, I now feel slightly uncomfortable about anonymously being rude about public figures.

As I said to the journalist at the end of my interview, when asked if she could quote me, "Quoting me is the least of my worries. What matters is the way that you quote and the context that you put it in." Sure enough, the quotes attributed to me in the published article were selective, taken out of context, and inaccurate.

As a result, I feel more sympathy for the people in the news who see their words taken out of context, like poor old Benedict XVI (okay, maybe not!) and may put away my sharpened knives for a while.

In fact, I may do a 180º turn and support somebody occasionally, such as secretary of state Castro Guerra, who appeared in very poor light on the TV this morning because of the Johnson Control factory that will close in Portalegre. It's not his fault. In my contacts with him when he was Chairman of IAPMEI he came across as an honest, concerned manager, not as a politician. He used all the tools available to him to secure foreign investment and Portuguese jobs. If globalisation means that once the State benefits expire the multinationals move to cheaper locations, he's not to blame.