Reuters changes how it handles retractions after killing tax column

In the wake of a David Cay Johnston column about News Corp.’s taxes that turned out to be erroneous and was killed, Reuters has changed its policy about retractions and will now keep the content on its website.

Steve Myers of Poynter.org writes, “‘The correction/kill policy that is followed at Reuters is long-established by the wire service,’ Ledbetter said. ‘There isn’t a procedure for taking down something that is wrong because for the vast majority of Reuters’ existence, there was nothing to take down.’

“Under the new policy, the erroneous post would remain online even after Reuters published a follow-up.

“‘I think it stands as a transparent record of what occurred,’ he said. ‘I think to take it down – while I can see some argument for that – it’s not being fully transparent with our readers about the process, and it could be subject to abuse.’

“One advantage of this approach is that it retains reader comments, which disappear when a post is deleted.

“In this case, user comments could have helped Reuters and Johnston identify a critical error within a few hours of publishing the original story. Shortly after the column was posted the morning of July 12, a reader suggested in a comment that Johnston had misread News Corp.’s documents.”

Read more here.