Is this what plagiarism looks like?

In July of 2005, I attended a Critical Mass ride in Chilliwack. Asked by a local family to cover the story for one of the local papers, I did so, as a favour, with no care for renumeration.

This is what I submitted.

This is what was printed and shall be forevermore attributed in databases to "reporter" Penny Lett.

This was my e-mail to the editor.

This was their response.

Ah! and then (how cute are they!) this was printed on August 7th. (You have to scroll down to page four...)

How many ways can I say....

...

... WHATEVER!

I don't think their response was sufficient, or appropriate. I don't see how, oh, taking my text and saying it was a collected quotation from an organiser is ethical. I don't see how changing the numbers (or basically writing the thing like you were there) is journalism, and I don't see how a buried reference to me as "a contributing author" fixes the damn thing.

However, and let this be a lesson to PR people out there, seems pretty easy to get just about anything -- unverified -- printed, eh?