The NYTimes published a story online indicating that Hillary Clinton was the focus of a criminal inquiry brought by the Justice Department having to do with Clinton’s mishandling of classified government documents. The headline read ‘Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email’ driving massive amounts of online traffic. However, the Justice Department had not issued a ‘criminal inquiry’ directed toward Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information but a ‘security inquiry’ about the general mishandling of classified information. The NYTimes was delinquent in revising the misreported information and as a result readers lost confidence in the Times’ ability to publish accurate, verified and un-bias information.

Margaret Sullivan, the author of an Op-ed published in the Times on the 27th, believes that the misreporting was due to the elevated level of competition between news-outlets to report the latest scoop and lack of transparency after the fact.

There has always been competition amongst news outlets to break first on a story, especially one involving a prominent politician. However, with the rise of online journalism the level of competition has increased dramatically. News-outlets are invested in breaking a story first which has caused instances of mis-reporting due to inaccurate information. One of the problems that the Times ran into while gathering the information to publish the HRC article were ‘unnamed sources’. No matter the track record or certainty reporters have with unnamed sources they risk a higher level of accountability. If a source is willing to publish his/her name then he/she is accountable for the information given to a news-outlet.

I believe that, for the most part, trusted news-outlets do a good job reporting the news. To my knowledge it is only when there is a ‘scandal’ that facts get crossed and misinformation redacted. The only possible way to combat this issue is to hold a story until you can report it with absolute (or nearly absolute) certainty. And when something is misreported to revise the mistake and explain why to readers in order to maintain a level of trust and decency.