Ambiguous answer choices like answer choice (C) can be confusing. What you want to do is piece out what the argument is saying and apply it to the ambiguous answer. The conclusion of the argument is: "Since this practice avoids the more serious misrepresentation that would occur if people's exact words were quoted but their ideas only partially expressed, it is entirely defensible." The argument tells us that the "journalistic practice of fabricating remarks after an interview and printing them within quotation marks, as if they were the interviewee's own words" has been said to be unfair misrepresentation. But then the argument continues by explaining that spoken remarks rarely convey the actual idea of a person as clearly as does a distillation of those ideas crafted, after an interview, by a skilled writer.
Now, let's breakdown answer choice (C). The author is saying that though some have said that the practice of fabricating remarks after an interview within quotation marks, as if they were the interviewee's own words, is a form of unfair misrepresentation, it is actually entirely defensible. The author's reasoning is that people's actual spoken remarks rarely convey their ideas as clearly as does distillation of those ideas crafted, after an interview, by a skilled writer, and therefore, since the practice of rewriting the interviewee's remarks helps avoid this more serious misrepresentation, it is entirely defensible.
Now, aren't there other ways to make sure there is neither form of misrepresentation? Of course there are. Possibly, the interviewer could merely ask the interviewee to further clarify their idea if they feel that the interviewee's words have not properly conveyed their idea. Thus, we see that the author is "offering as an adequate defense of a practice an observation that discredits only one of several possible alternatives to that practice."
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