6 ms·

But they published it. They should not remove it. Publish a correction. Removal is not acceptable.

by dingo_bat 8y ago

danso 8y ago
Why not?
- mieseratte 8y ago
  Knowledge is power! By presenting us the full-picture, we can potentially guard ourselves in the future.
  - danso 8y ago
    But NPR is asserting that its story was fundamentally flawed. Leaving it as is, even with a massive correction note, implies that the story has some worth, when in actuality it may be completely misleading because of the lack of reporting.
    - dingo_bat 8y ago
      It does have worth. It is a warning to them to not publish stuff not fully vetted. Removing the article makes everything else vapor. It diminishes the worth of everything they publish.
      - danso 8y ago
        You believe that the lesson is forgotten, even though the content of the retracted article is now several paragraphs describing the errors that led to the retraction? How exactly is that not a warning to journalists in the future?
        dingo_bat 8y ago
        How do I know what the mistake was? I did not read the original article. There is no proper way for me to understand the issue. Yeah I can go look up archives people took before they purged the article, but that is besides the point. NPR has hidden their mistake. They have made it impossible for a reader to fully understand the blunder they committed. It doesn't help anyone. It certainly doesn't inspire trust in their journalistic capability.
        mieseratte 8y ago
        Why bother publishing first-hand sources of history? Because new meaning or insight can possibly be gleaned from them.
- syrrim 8y ago
  No doubt many people read the original story. Those people will carry on believing the original story unless they are corrected.
  - detaro 8y ago
    How does the story being available or not change that?
    - sgtmas2006 8y ago
      Being available with a correction allows anyone who has seen it that shares it to another person, so long as the person told cares about authenticity, to go online and find out that in reality XYZ were incorrect about the story. Removing it from history either allows the prior person to spread misinformation to those that will not research it, preventing them from correcting the person telling the story or learning the truth on their own.
      - TwoBit 8y ago
        If they don't remove it then redditors will link to it and confuse readers for years to come. At least they should put a banner at the top saying it's retracted.
- dingo_bat 8y ago
  Because there is something called professional and human integrity. Own up to your mistakes. Accept responsibility. Do you force push a fix whenever you merge a buggy commit? I would hope not. I describe my mistake, and what I am doing to fix it. But what is done is done. Hiding it is just being unfaithful to your profession and in this case, to your audience.
  - danso 8y ago
    The very first paragraph of the retraction notice: > Editor's note on April 11, 2018: NPR has retracted the story that was previously on this page because it did not meet our standards. "Fairness" is one of our guiding principles, and to that end we have pledged to "make every effort to gather responses from those who are the subjects of criticism." In this instance, that did not happen. So how does this not count as owning up to mistakes and accepting responsibility? Your analogy with a git commit/`push --force` is flawed. In software, the end user is not at risk (without much deliberative effort) of running the buggy commit. In journalism, the article content is the actual end user product, and grievously erroneous content causes actual harm. Moreover, the mistakes that NPR admits to making were not just a "buggy" commit. It was the equivalent of checking in malware from the very first commit.
jessaustin 8y ago
Do you mind going into more detail here? Why is removal not acceptable? If someone was slandered, why is it better to leave that slander in place with disclaimers? If it's better from the perspective of journalism, does that conflict with what's better from the perspective of not being sued? There's an interesting tension between this argument and the ostensible topic of the original story, "the right to be forgotten". [0] Does Ervine really have a right to see that personal criticisms of his conduct are removed from the Google? Does the person who criticized him have a right to see a one-sided account of his life removed from NPR? I almost admire NPR enough to suspect that they're doing all this as an exercise in ironic criticism (which the ombudsman linked elsewhere attempts to lampshade), but I can't quite get there. [0] "Ostensible" because the original was mostly a clumsy, credulous submarine for a toxic rich dude's latest scam venture, along with some additional knife-twisting on some poor immigrant the rich dude had gotten sentenced to federal prison.
- dingo_bat 8y ago
  > Why is removal not acceptable? Because once published, you must stand by what you published. Accept your mistake. Put a big notice on it saying how sorry you are and how much more careful you will be in future. Hiding it is running from it. > If it's better from the perspective of journalism, does that conflict with what's better from the perspective of not being sued? It's all about how much these "journalists" respect their own profession. If I commit a horrible bug, I don't go and purge it from github using --force. I leave it there as a reminder and acceptance of my mistake.
  - scott_s 8y ago
    The difference is that the existence of your bug in source code form harms no one. But the existence of an unethically reported story, even with a correction, can cause real harm. Using your analogy, your proposed correction would be to leave the bug in production, but give some "Hey, sorry, we made a mistake" message.
    - dingo_bat 8y ago

But they published it. They should not remove it. Publish a correction. Removal is not acceptable.

danso 8y ago

Why not?

mieseratte 8y ago
Knowledge is power! By presenting us the full-picture, we can potentially guard ourselves in the future.
- danso 8y ago
  But NPR is asserting that its story was fundamentally flawed. Leaving it as is, even with a massive correction note, implies that the story has some worth, when in actuality it may be completely misleading because of the lack of reporting.
  - dingo_bat 8y ago
    It does have worth. It is a warning to them to not publish stuff not fully vetted. Removing the article makes everything else vapor. It diminishes the worth of everything they publish.
    - danso 8y ago
      You believe that the lesson is forgotten, even though the content of the retracted article is now several paragraphs describing the errors that led to the retraction? How exactly is that not a warning to journalists in the future?
      - dingo_bat 8y ago
        How do I know what the mistake was? I did not read the original article. There is no proper way for me to understand the issue. Yeah I can go look up archives people took before they purged the article, but that is besides the point. NPR has hidden their mistake. They have made it impossible for a reader to fully understand the blunder they committed. It doesn't help anyone. It certainly doesn't inspire trust in their journalistic capability.
      - mieseratte 8y ago
        Why bother publishing first-hand sources of history? Because new meaning or insight can possibly be gleaned from them.
syrrim 8y ago
No doubt many people read the original story. Those people will carry on believing the original story unless they are corrected.
- detaro 8y ago
  How does the story being available or not change that?
  - sgtmas2006 8y ago
    Being available with a correction allows anyone who has seen it that shares it to another person, so long as the person told cares about authenticity, to go online and find out that in reality XYZ were incorrect about the story. Removing it from history either allows the prior person to spread misinformation to those that will not research it, preventing them from correcting the person telling the story or learning the truth on their own.
    - TwoBit 8y ago
      If they don't remove it then redditors will link to it and confuse readers for years to come. At least they should put a banner at the top saying it's retracted.
dingo_bat 8y ago
Because there is something called professional and human integrity. Own up to your mistakes. Accept responsibility. Do you force push a fix whenever you merge a buggy commit? I would hope not. I describe my mistake, and what I am doing to fix it. But what is done is done. Hiding it is just being unfaithful to your profession and in this case, to your audience.
- danso 8y ago
  The very first paragraph of the retraction notice: > Editor's note on April 11, 2018: NPR has retracted the story that was previously on this page because it did not meet our standards. "Fairness" is one of our guiding principles, and to that end we have pledged to "make every effort to gather responses from those who are the subjects of criticism." In this instance, that did not happen. So how does this not count as owning up to mistakes and accepting responsibility? Your analogy with a git commit/`push --force` is flawed. In software, the end user is not at risk (without much deliberative effort) of running the buggy commit. In journalism, the article content is the actual end user product, and grievously erroneous content causes actual harm. Moreover, the mistakes that NPR admits to making were not just a "buggy" commit. It was the equivalent of checking in malware from the very first commit.

jessaustin 8y ago

Do you mind going into more detail here? Why is removal not acceptable? If someone was slandered, why is it better to leave that slander in place with disclaimers? If it's better from the perspective of journalism, does that conflict with what's better from the perspective of not being sued? There's an interesting tension between this argument and the ostensible topic of the original story, "the right to be forgotten". [0] Does Ervine really have a right to see that personal criticisms of his conduct are removed from the Google? Does the person who criticized him have a right to see a one-sided account of his life removed from NPR? I almost admire NPR enough to suspect that they're doing all this as an exercise in ironic criticism (which the ombudsman linked elsewhere attempts to lampshade), but I can't quite get there. [0] "Ostensible" because the original was mostly a clumsy, credulous submarine for a toxic rich dude's latest scam venture, along with some additional knife-twisting on some poor immigrant the rich dude had gotten sentenced to federal prison.

dingo_bat 8y ago
> Why is removal not acceptable? Because once published, you must stand by what you published. Accept your mistake. Put a big notice on it saying how sorry you are and how much more careful you will be in future. Hiding it is running from it. > If it's better from the perspective of journalism, does that conflict with what's better from the perspective of not being sued? It's all about how much these "journalists" respect their own profession. If I commit a horrible bug, I don't go and purge it from github using --force. I leave it there as a reminder and acceptance of my mistake.
- scott_s 8y ago
  The difference is that the existence of your bug in source code form harms no one. But the existence of an unethically reported story, even with a correction, can cause real harm. Using your analogy, your proposed correction would be to leave the bug in production, but give some "Hey, sorry, we made a mistake" message.
  - dingo_bat 8y ago