Rita’s not typical

I can’t help thinking that JK Rowling has got a teensie bit ­vindictive about the press, in her latest description of the mythical Rita Skeeter as the muck-raking journalist out to get Harry ­(Potter) and his friends (your report, 9 July)

To be sure, the author may well have been the target of one or two vulgar paparazzi, and we now know of the various nasties involved at some of Murdoch’s titles.

But surely Ms Rowling owes not a little of her success to publicity of the right sort. I, like many I suspect, had not heard of the Potter series before reading a review in our own dear Scotsman.

I may be lucky – and I’m no-one famous – but the journalists I have had dealings with have ­always been respectful and polite, and I have never been misquoted by them.

It’s a pity if Rowling’s character Rita is regarded as typical of the profession when I suspect such individuals represent a tiny ­minority.

(Dr) Mary Brown

Dalvenie Road

Banchory