This is from the Friday edition of the News-Enterprise from Hardin County, Kentucky.
An extensive apology was issued yesterday by the editors. The Sheriff did not say that nor the writer wrote it. Apparently, the article was changed farther down the chain:
Internally, the newspaper leadership spent yesterday researching this error, discovering the form it took and taking corrective action. As a result, the two people involved were fired.
Reporter Anna Taylor, whose name was on the story, is not responsible for this error.
Many of Thursday’s upset callers asked the same question: “Doesn’t anyone proof your newspaper?”
Well, surprisingly that’s where the error took place. A function and process designed to rid the news pages of error instead added a terrible one that altered the reporter’s original sentence. No reasonable excuse can exist.
Whomever the two morons were, there is no doubt that at least one of them decided to play politics where he/she shouldn’t and maybe the other one did not properly supervise, but I am guessing. Anyways, you are entitled as an individual to express your opinion and be brave about it, but not on a private forum that is not yours or have permission to access.
It takes years to develop trust. It takes only seconds to destroy it.
Indeed. And as critical as I am of Old media, I do give kudos to the News-Enterprise for stepping up, fire those responsible and not trying to BS their way out of it.
They should have posted the names of the individuals involved so that they could be marked should they attempt to work for another news paper.
I was just on my way in here to suggest this. Blackballing is a nasty practice, but in this case it’s absolutely called for.
Libel can be hard to prove in court. But in this case…
I’d figure yes as it is the paper’s responsibility for what it gets printed, but also there is the issue of malice by most of the chain: No malice from the reporter or the editors but a couple of idiots on the end. If the paper is indeed sorry, personally I would not go after them. But that is me.