SMRs and AMRs

Monday, July 27, 2015

A Clinton Story Fraught With Inaccuracies

How It Happened and What Next?

By Margaret Sullivan, NYT
July 27, 2015 10:00 am

Updated, 10:54 a.m. | The story certainly seemed like a blockbuster: A criminal investigation of Hillary Rodham Clinton by the Justice Department was being sought by two federal inspectors general over her email practices while secretary of state.

It’s hard to imagine a much more significant political story at this moment, given that she is the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president.

The story – a Times exclusive — appeared high on the home page and the mobile app late Thursday and on Friday and then was displayed with a three-column headline on the front page in Friday’s paper. The online headline read “Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email,” very similar to the one in print.

But aspects of it began to unravel soon after it first went online. The first major change was this: It wasn’t really Mrs. Clinton directly who was the focus of the request for an investigation. It was more general: whether government information was handled improperly in connection with her use of a personal email account.

Much later, The Times backed off the startling characterization of a “criminal inquiry,” instead calling it something far tamer sounding: it was a “security” referral.

From Thursday night to Sunday morning – when a final correction appeared in print – the inaccuracies and changes in the story were handled as they came along, with little explanation to readers, other than routine corrections. The first change I mentioned above was written into the story for hours without a correction or any notice of the change, which was substantive.

(More here.)

1 Comments:

Blogger Tom Koch said...

The story might very well have some inaccuracies and at the same time, trying to defend Queen Hillary is akin to thinking one can pick up a turd by the clean end. Surely the DEM's can do better than another Clinton and a Socialist sputtering thoughts that the pre-2015 Greeks thought were fabulous.

9:48 PM  

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