I write in reference to the editor’s note accompanying the interview I gave to this newspaper (TMID, 30 July).

Firstly, as I have already done personally when I met your journalist Annaliza Borg, I would like to apologise to her for not attending the scheduled meeting on Thursday, which meeting I had to cancel at the very last minute due to urgent matters related to my work. Unfortunately the nature of my work is such that urgent matters have to be attended to immediately and take precedence over everything else, personal or otherwise.

On Friday, Ms Borg came to my office at 8.30am and I saw her 10 minutes later when she was accompanied by my assistant to my house, which is a stone’s throw away from my office, given that my six-year-old son was still asleep and I did not wish to wake him up early when I could do otherwise. Little did I know that my motherly instinct would in some way carry with it an editorial disappointment worthy of mention.

With regard to having my picture taken by your photographer, may I please point out that I had told your journalist that I was going to take this interview on what was supposedly my day off in a very long time and that I would rather give the paper a picture than having to dress up and make up to take a couple of shots, wasting your photographer’s time and mine. I certainly meant no disrespect to your photographer and hardly gave it a second thought before I read about it in your note.

To be honest with your readership, I hardly think the matter necessitated an editorial note in the first place and I find it quite surprising that an editor of a newspaper like yourself would be so insensitive towards an interviewee who did not ask, but was asked, to be interviewed by the paper, and who gave up close to three hours of her valuable time to answer questions posed by the journalist. I am sure that your editorial note constitutes unacceptable behaviour by any journalistic standard and although it was undoubtedly written to put me in bad light for some unknown (or known) reason, I feel it unfortunately ended up reflecting badly on your paper and editorial ethics.

■ Dr Deborah Schembri

St Paul’s Bay