Fortaleza doesn’t like it when you translate their tweets
Reuters columnist Cate Long found herself in the crosshairs of Puerto Rico’s executive Mansion when she published a post about Fortaleza’s bizarre tweets explicitly referencing the possibility of bankruptcy of the Government Development Bank of Puerto Rico and the downgrade of its bonds. She happened to have translated the tweets from Spanish to English.
The Director of Digital Strategy at the Executive Office of the Governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Alfaro tweeted that Long’s translations of the tweets from Fortaleza where not officially sanctioned.
The translation published by @cate_long on her blog in @Reuters was not written nor authorized by @fortalezapr.
— Ricardo Alfaro (@ralfaro) June 22, 2013
Long later said to have used Google Translate to obtain the English version of the tweets, and replied asking if the substance of the tweets was true in the translated tweets. Alfaro responded by saying that they “…don’t have a problem with the substance because it is the truth. Yet the translation may be misleading.” When asked what may have been misleading from the translated tweets, Alfaro did not respond. Long also invited him to provide an official translation in the comments of her post, but as of press time, no translations had been provided.
@cate_long @Reuters @fortalezapr we don't have a problem with the substance because it is the truth. Yet the translation may be misleading.
— Ricardo Alfaro (@ralfaro) June 22, 2013
The confusing and somewhat embarrassing response from Fortaleza may have possibly been because of a wish to craft the narrative on their budget proposals to investors on a different note than what they are telling people in Puerto Rico.
Another possibility is that they wanted to avoid having the translated tweets with their bad grammar seen as being written by Fortaleza, given the Puerto Rican Governor’s several struggles with the English language.
