EDINBURGH-based freelance writer, Andrew Collier, scored a notable success with an interview he conducted with Gene Robinson, the bishop of New Hampshire, in the USA, and the world’s first openly gay Anglican bishop.
It was an interview that had taken a long while to set up and his ‘reward’ included a double-page spread in Saturday’s Scotsman newspaper and a big show – albeit under the byline of the in-house religious affairs correspondent, and agreed by Collier – in The Times, also on Saturday.
He’s spent some of this week trying to sell spin-off pieces, and made to call a couple of Christian groups, by checking their websites.
But lo, already on both sites, was his piece. Posted without permission and without any suggestion of Collier about to be paid, though you never know.
What’s more, one of the sites – about ‘standing firm in faith’ – is using the article to have a go at him, under the headline: ‘Andrew Collier fails as a journalist: here’s his hash job on Gene Robinson’.
Says Collier: “It’s all pretty ugly stuff for people who claim to be Christians.”
