Thursday, July 23, 2015, was when the New York Times published the first story about Mrs. Clinton. It was entitled “Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email.” Mrs. Clinton sent emails with classified information through her personal email account. The title made the article seem like the investigation was against how Mrs. Clinton mishandled government information, but it was really against how the government let secret documents get released openly. The Times made corrections to try and correct the misprint by releasing a new story on Friday afternoon.

One big correction to the story was the change in title because it was too harsh. Instead of a criminal inquiry, The Times called it a “security referral.” When the title changed, there were a number of corrections made to the online story and the one in print. The only problem was that there was no explanation to the readers about the changes. Some readers even wanted a refund of their newspaper and explanation of how the original story made it to the press if there were so many mistakes.

When the Times released their explanation, they said they got their information from “a very reliable source in law enforcement.” It was not too long before people realized this was the Justice Department. Originally, they said the investigation they were conducting was a criminal inquiry, but later changed it to a security inquiry.

Journalists could avoid tarnishing their own reputations by taking time to write their story with all the information from an accurate source. An anonymous source like the government does not cut it because it means you have no way to know if the information is true. No other source can be used as a backup. If mistakes happen, changes have to be made immediately with an explanation. The Times had to rewrite their story because slight alterations were made throughout Friday morning without an explanation and stayed like that for hours. The reason this happens is that newspapers are faced with competitive pressure and strive to be the first ones to publish the latest “breaking news.”

In regards to the email scandal, both the news media and Clinton were to blame for their actions. While Clinton was no legally mandated to have a Department of State email address, she still should have used one to follow protocol of her predecessors. Also, when Clinton decided to give up 55,000 of her personal emails for review, her and her team were able to pick which emails went out to the public. While they may have been protecting classified information in doing this, it still made Clinton look suspect.

The media’s coverage in all of this was rather premature. Had the news media waited to create a story after they found exactly what Clinton was emailing about, perhaps they would have had a meatier story. The media also kept comparing Hillary’s actions to those of Condoleezza Rice who also used a personal email account to conduct business- but that was around 10 years ago, when technology was not in such high use. With that somewhat empty comparison, it seems the media was just looking for another way to slant the story in their favor.

In the case regarding Mrs. Clinton’s personal emails, it seems like reporters may have been too trigger happy. The problem with news coverage is that everyone wants to be the first one to publish a story. They don’t stop to think over the facts they were given because it would be too “detrimental” to wait and be the last one to cover the story than be the first and get the story wrong. Reporters of the Times defended themselves saying that they wrote what they were given from the justice department, that it was a criminal investigation. But it is suggested that the department didn’t even know what kind of investigation they were doing until a day or so later. I think it would have been better for the Times to tell the readers that perhaps it may be a criminal investigation based on what this source has said but it hasn’t been confirmed yet instead of jumping the gun and calling it a criminal investigation because of one person’s view. Margaret Sullivan claims that news should be about “Less speed. More transparency”. I agree with this philosophy. If the news waited to cover the story a day later, they would have been able to tell the correct details of the situation instead of going off on a tangent of one person’s opinion. Also, the reporters should have acknowledged their mistakes instead of changing the facts and leaving the readers confused.

The New York Times and the Hillary Clinton email story. What went wrong?

The problem for editors and reporters of the New York Times with the Clinton story is that they had to rely on anonymous sources in order to break news. There are only so many ways to confirm a story and sometimes anonymous sources are correct and sometimes they are not. However, the mistakes in the story are small, and we have seen since the writing of the article that if you took the information we know today of the e-mails, the initial description in the first story could be correct. The truth is that there is no way to be 100% certain that every word from your sources will be true, but as a reporter you have to make the decision to go with your sources and sometimes you will be right and sometimes you will be wrong.

News organizations should only publish classified information that affects the rights of Americans. The problem with Snowden is that he leaked the info to Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Wikileaks. Neither of the three mentioned have the interest of the US and its security. Wikileaks has in the past has posted leaked documents without blacking out names and addresses of individuals cooperating with the US. Glenn Greenwald has previously stated his views that the US is the oppressor in the middle east because of our use of Drones. He should be asked what is the other alternative? Ground Troops? I’m sure he opposes that too.

Laura Poitras, based on the article clearly had a certain point of view about the Iraq war before going over to cover it. Secondly, you have to question her ethics when in her own words she said that she relied on the “generosity of American soldiers, who gave her the key to a trailer where she could sleep”, and then she proceeded to stay with a doctor and filmed an ambush from his rooftop. She also wanted to go to “Guantanamo, as the second part of a trilogy about American power after 9/11.” The question to raise is did she really want to cover the war or did she want to criticize American power.

Lastly, the problem with Snowden is that while he leaked information that  Americans did not know of,  he also leaked out information about the IP addresses of computers in China that our government had access to. Also, while he was in Hong Kong he gave some files to a Hong Kong reporter, what happened to those files? Before he was allowed to stay in Russia, do you really think that the Russians did not take a look at his computer before allowing him to stay. In the end Snowden did not leak info to the “media”, he leaked to to reporters who had the same agenda as he did and also who that did not like the security measures of the US. Snowden is a naive man who believes that none of this information is needed, but the real irony is that he’s currently in Russia, a country who’s reading every single word he writes or searches for on the internet.

In the haste of scoop journalism a serious mistake was made that will likely be detrimental to Hillary Clinton’s campaign for its entire length. The New York Times wanted to get out a story that would draw in readers and in doing so, inaccurately described a situation that didn’t specifically involve only Hillary Clinton. However, the Times made the grave mistake of wanting things done quickly rather than done well.

The first mistake that the Times made was trusting an anonymous source. While in some cases an anonymous source may be necessary or understandable to use in situations where a person may be in danger, this particular instance didn’t exactly make sense. On top of that, there is usually some sort of way to ensure confidentiality between the journalist and the source so that the journalist can be sure that the source is trustworthy without putting the source at risk. But it was a very amateur move to trust an anonymous source without knowing his/her credentials or to have someone else also verify the story they were telling.

Another mistake the Times made was using language that was more eye-capturing than it was accurate. Although at first they did think there was reason to believe it was a “criminal” referral, they should have taken more time to know for sure whether that was the case. Especially in the instances of high profile people such as Hillary Clinton, accusing someone of this stature of criminal activity can do a lot to hurt them and there is usually very little they can do to turn it back around. Once you stick a label as negatively connoted as “criminal” on a person, there is little you can do to take it back.

A third mistake made by the Times was not retracting the headline sooner and not making it known that they did change the headline from “criminal” to “security” referral sooner. This would have called many more people’s attention to the fact and could have at least slowed some people in their judgment of Hillary Clinton and her actions.

The major issue that occurred in the coverage of this story wasn’t that changes were made to the article after it had been published – although that is an issue for reader who were unaware of updates. The focus is on the fact that the Times did not promptly make these changes and failed to notify and give reasoning for such changes.

Wording such as “criminal inquiry” which was later changed to “security referral” along with other edits made between publication on Thursday night to final edits made and acknowledged on Sunday appear striking to readers. As a reader, accurate news is expected but technical errors are understanding in that news is reported as quickly as possible to keep the public well informed. However, if a reader is not notified about the nature of the change and the reasoning for it, they are just as improperly informed as they were when reading the original article.

I think news organizations who come across issues such as these with a story as vital as this one should publish an immediate notice online and a notice in the print copy of the paper the following day. The correct information should be readily available to readers in a new article, not simply corrected in one that was previously published. This will make it easier for readers to be aware of corrections and give news organizations a platform to explain their reasoning.

I agree with the reader who wrote to the Times following the confusion of information, demanding clarification in the following way:

1) please repost the original reporting;
2) provide an explanation as to how it made it to press and what was wrong.
3) what are you going to do to prevent such inaccurate bias in the future?
4) are you going to minimize using unnamed sources?

I think this speaks to how most – if not all – readers felt trying to follow the details of this story as articles were published.

Similar to the issues presented with the Bill Cosby Rape allegations, the topic of discussion is sensitive and controversial. It involves the on going debate of whether it is morally correct to report the facts, based on the sensitivity of the issue. In the case of Edwards Snowden, I do think news organizations had a duty to publish information about the case. As news reporters they are obligated to the deliver news, especially if it impacts the greater population.

In The Holder of Secrets, Laura Poitras states, “…I think you just take this out altogether. The whole thing. It’s too identifying. I think, given the risk, we should be careful.” Similar to her statement made, many reporters may have felt that the information was too revealing and posed a threat. In situations like these you have to remain mutual and consider both parties.

Just because it is the NSA, does it make it acceptable to not reveal the information? No. The media could have reported the information in a way that wasn’t detrimental to the government or people of the United States. It is also important to remember that although journalists have certain restrictions they must abide by, at the end of the day they are also citizens of the United States.

The case of Edward Snowden is complicated when it comes to reporting because the information he brought forth is extremely controversial. Exposing him will change his life forever and it must be very difficult to be the reporter that is chosen to do it. That being said, news organizations are meant to inform us and keep us aware of the fact that any government can become too power hungry. They are there to remind us that there is a line that should not be crossed. The information that Edward Snowden presented definitely should have been published because it showed the American people that the line was definitely crossed. It is understandable that a country can become paranoid after a devastating event like 9/11, but the government should still have been able to keep their actions in accordance with the beliefs of this nation. I think Laura Poitras should be looked at as a role model for journalists and aspiring journalists alike. The article stated how difficult it was for Poitras to watch all the footage she had collected and compared Snowden’s actions to a suicide. What her and Glen Greenwald gave to the public was the opportunity to put an end to the overstepping of their government, or at least try to. The documents they leaked helped to stop an infringement on people’s privacy and that is the pinnacle of what journalists are meant to do.

The greatest weakness amongst the public is our susceptibility to ignorance. As the old saying goes, “Knowledge is power” and when organizations with greater resources purposely leave the public in the dark, they create a public that is by default worse off. When organizations with great power, such as government agencies, do not keep their public informed, who then will? A public that only knows parts of a story or perhaps no part of the story at all, falls prey to victimization. This is exactly what happened with the case of the NSA.

In the film CitizenFour, a clip of Barack Obama giving a press conference is shown where he says that he does not find people like Edward Snowden to be a true patriot for releasing the private classified information about the NSA. Obama says that the American public would want fair trials and reviews conducted by courts to monitor failings within the NSA. However, earlier in the movie, we saw that when the NSA was being reviewed by government officials, the director of the NSA, blatantly lied about the NSA not having access to American citizens’ private information such as their cell phone usage, Internet usage, etc.

So when things like this happen and people who we are expected to trust, willfully perjure, who does the public turn to? Who can we turn to? The clear answer is the media. Individuals within the public do not have the resources to find out when their own government is committing crimes against them. But people like Poitras and Greenwald do. They are vetted and well seasoned journalists who have the prowess to protect the public from the one entity that is supposed to be protecting us.

Is there a duty to publish classified documents? Yes and no. There is a duty when it directly affects the public’s interests, which in this case it did. As was stated in the film, using metadata, the NSA can virtually track you at any given point and reasonably accuse of something you did not do, by piecing together a story with facts, but without context. That is dangerous. How can the public trust its government when the government feels like it can’t trust the public?

It is reasonable to withhold certain documents from the public if it puts the country or the country’s interests at stake. That is fair and agreed upon. However, the duty of journalists as the “Fourth Estate” is to check that our government is not committing heinous crimes and worse, using taxpayer money to do so, and worst of all, using these resources against the taxpayers themselves.

The citizens of this country have a lot to worry about. We are concerned about healthcare, the war overseas, poverty, underfunded public education, immigration, and the list goes on, But the only reason we have legitimate concern for all of these things is because a trusted source delivers to us the facts about these things. Then we are able to form our own thoughts and opinions on them and try and come up with viable solutions and use our government as a means to achieve it. But how can we understand the problem of national security that our government is trying to address when it is all a secret? Are we to live in constant fear forever that Big Brother is watching?

No. We need journalists like Poitras and Greenwald to uncover what can be done on the public’s end to end this violation on every American citizen and on citizens abroad committed by our government. It is unfair that Poitras has to live in exile in Berlin. It is unfair that, as stated in the article, she feels like there are microphones facing her apartment. Is it paranoia? Maybe. Is it legitimate? Yes, it clearly is. And without her and others like her, we would not know it was legitimate.

It is unfair that our government has not only the resources to launch a campaign against its own citizens, but that it chooses to do so, and poses it as “in the public’s interest.” As a democratic nation, we have the right to decide for ourselves what is in our best interests. And if we feel that being watched or using resources to send a drone to follow someone’s house is not the best allocation of those resources, then we need to present another more viable option. One that does not violate our rights.