On Friday morning, The New York Times published a story alleging that the Department of Justice was pursuing a "criminal inquiry" into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email account during her tenure as secretary of state. But as the story that "seemed like a blockbuster" spread over the internet, some crucial inaccuracies emerged: For one, Clinton was not the subject of the investigation — it was a more general investigation into whether government information in her personal emails was mishandled — and then the Times backed off the "criminal" aspect of the inquiry altogether, downgrading it to a "security referral."
"It was, to put it mildly, a mess," writes The New York Times' Public Editor Margaret Sullivan. Though The New York Times proceeded to issue not one, but two corrections, and the story underwent numerous modifications, "[y]ou can't put stories like this back in the bottle — they ripple through the entire news system," Sullivan says.
The Times attributed the mistaken reporting to sources with incorrect information, and Sullivan stands by the paper's admission, writing that, while unfortunate, it is "an explanation not an excuse."
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Her advice for the future: simply wait.
Losing the story to another news outlet would have been a far, far better outcome than publishing an unfair story and damaging The Times' reputation for accuracy.What's more, when mistakes inevitably happen, the Times needs to be much more transparent with readers about what is going on. Just revising the story, and figuring out the corrections later, doesn't cut it. [The New York Times]
Read Sullivan's full critique here.
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