The New York Times' public editor says the paper's Clinton-DOJ story was a 'mess'

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published 27 July 2015

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.