The editor of an anti-opposition newspaper called God Forbid said he will apologize to a prominent author who said her words were taken out of context by the paper and printed without permission, RIA-Novosti reported.
Tatyana Tolstaya, a distant relative of author Lev Tolstoy, wrote Wednesday that a newspaper "working for Putin" had stolen a LiveJournal post she wrote about her impressions of participants at an opposition rally and reprinted parts of it, complete with punctuation errors.
She said sections of the post were altered so that the article seemed to suggest Putin's election victory was inevitable, while she had intended it to mean that no matter who won, the election would be stolen and given to Putin.
The newspaper's editor Vladimir Mamontov admitted using the post, but said it was public material and did not amount to plagiarism.
"Yes, we posted a message from her LiveJournal. We have a section called 'The Internet Says' and we quoted several participants in the process, perhaps in some way we were wrong. We have a lawyer, but so far no one has told me that we have broken any laws," Mamontov said, RIA-Novosti reported.
