Over the weekend, the New York Times issued multiple corrections to a report regarding 2016 presidential front runner Hillary Clinton. The original article — a Times exclusive — said that two inspectors general asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation of Clinton for using a personal email account instead of her much more secure government address while she was secretary of state. But if the Justice Department decides to investigate, it won't be a criminal probe into Clinton, herself, but whether governmental information was compromised in connection with that personal email account. These corrections in the story came with little explanation to readers, at least initially.
The Times' own public editor, Margaret Sullivan, bluntly blamed a lack of accountability for using anonymous sources and the competitive pace of web journalism for inaccuracies in the story that falsely targeted Hillary Clinton. "I'll summarize my prescription in four words," she said. "Less speed. More transparency."
