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Danish author slams British tabloid for 'stealing' work

The Local Denmark
The Local Denmark - [email protected]
Danish author slams British tabloid for 'stealing' work
Puk Damsgård was sharly critical of the Daily Mail's handling of her work. Photo: Jeppe Bøje Nielsen/ Scanpix

Danish foreign correspondent Puk Damsgård has lashed out at Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper after it published a sensationalised article using extracts taken from her book under her byline without her permission.

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Damsgård, whose book 'Do you see the Moon, Daniel’ is now being published in English, erupted on Twitter when she first saw the article on the weekend. 
 
 
The book covers the thirteen-month ordeal of Danish photographer Daniel Rye Ottosen in ISIS captivity, during which time he was tortured so badly that he attempted suicide. 
 
It later turned out that the British newspaper had been given the right to run the extracts by Damsgård’s British publisher, British publishers Atlantic Books. 
 
To placate Damsgård the newspaper toned down the article and removed her byline. But she remained angry at the way her work had been misrepresented. 
 
 
She later complained that the original Daily Mail article did not only combine extracts but also introduced exaggerations and errors. 
 
Damsgård’s Danish publishing house Politiken said that while the Daily Mail had been given permission to run extracts, it should have sent its version to be vetted by her. 
 
”Puk Damsgård and Daniel Rye have both stressed that it should not be the tabloid-friendly content that such extracts should be taken from. The article should have been sent to Puk Damsgård for approval. For that reason this is strongly criticisable,” publisher Kim Hundevadt told Danish broadcaster DR, for whom Damsgård works as Middle East Correspondent.  
 

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