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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/us/editors-note-clinton-email-coverage.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article
The Times’s coverage last week of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s use of a personal email account as secretary of state involved several corrections and changes that may have left readers with a confused picture.
The Times reported online Thursday night (and in some print editions Friday) that the inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies had sent a referral to the Justice Department requesting a “criminal investigation” into whether Mrs. Clinton “mishandled sensitive government information” on the email account. That article was based on multiple high-level government sources.
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RELATED COVERAGE
Hillary Rodham Clinton at an event in West Columbia, S.C., on Thursday. Her email use while secretary of state has been an issue in the early part of her presidential run.Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of EmailJULY 23, 2015
Hillary Rodham Clinton visiting Greenville Technical College in South Carolina on Thursday.Hillary Clinton Emails Said to Contain Classified DataJULY 24, 2015
Shortly after the article was published online, however, aides to Mrs. Clinton contacted one reporter to dispute the account. After consultation between editors and reporters, the first paragraph was edited to say the investigation was requested “into whether sensitive government information was mishandled,” rather than into whether Mrs. Clinton herself mishandled information. That type of substantive change should have been noted immediately for readers; instead, a correction was not appended to the article until hours later.
On Friday, another question arose — whether the investigation being sought was a “criminal” inquiry. As other news organizations followed up on The Times’s report, the Justice Department confirmed to them that a “criminal” investigation had been requested. Officials also gave that description again to Times reporters who were rechecking their initial story. But later in the day, the Justice Department and the inspectors general said that the request was not a “criminal referral” but rather a “security referral,” meant to alert the F.B.I. about a potential mishandling of classified information. It was not clear how the discrepancy arose.
In addition, the inspectors said they discovered that four emails out of a sample of 40 they examined contained classified information, although it was not marked as such.
On Friday afternoon, The Times wrote a new article, including the inspectors’ finding and the change in the description of the referral, as well as Mrs. Clinton’s response that she was confident her emails did not contain classified information. The original article, however, was not altered online until Saturday morning to take account of the change in description of the referral from “criminal” to “security.” Editors should have added a correction sooner to note that change.
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Sloppy reporting and sloppy retraction by the New York Times. (July 27)
