News organizations make it a point not to repeat the original error that was
made; we take pains to state the corrected information only in a correction.
k
On 4/21/06, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote:
James D. Forrester wrote:
Using the {{office}} template to tag problem
content is a nice idea,
but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info
(amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for
them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you
can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost
it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they
are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that
it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then
liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I
know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the
way the Real World(tm) works.
No, that isn't at all how the Real World works. In the Real World, when
someone is accused of libel, they do exactly what we do: Take down the
content and post a prominent notice that it was taken down. Often the
original content is actually republished along with an apology;
something like: "We claimed in our issue of November 2 that Dr. Smith
was indicted for fraud; in fact, he was merely investigated by a grand
jury and never indicted; we regret the error."
As far as I know no media organization has been actually sued (at least
not successfully) for that.
-Mark
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