How important is it to get a quote exactly right?

In the leading case governing journalists' use of quotations, Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the issue under its “substantial truth” doctrine, which allows minor inaccuracies to be ignored so long as the gist of the statement remains true. Accordingly, the deliberate alteration of a quotation does not render the statement false unless the alteration “results in a material change in the statement’s meaning.”

A federal appellate opinion reinstating a televangelist’s defamation lawsuit against a television news magazine over its use of a video clip from one of the preacher’s sermons indicates that removing a statement from its original context may materially alter the meaning of a speaker's words such that they could constitute a false statement.