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.”