Categories: OLD Media Moves

The NYTimes and its use of anonymous sources in biz stories

Margaret Sullivan, the public editor of the New York Times, writes about how the paper’s business news desk used anonymous sources when writing that golfer Phil Mickelson was being investigated for insider trading.

Sullivan writes, “I talked with the business editor, Dean Murphy, on Tuesday about one of the cases mentioned above: A story that originally said that Phil Mickelson, the famous golfer, was being investigated for insider trading related to Clorox. (The article, which had a number of other components, appeared on the front page and was displayed prominently on the home page.)

“About a week later, a correction was added — and a new article acknowledged the error: The Times had ‘overstated the scope’ of the investigation. ‘While investigators are looking at his trading in some stocks, Clorox is not among them.’ (Other news organizations, Mr. Murphy noted, got it wrong, too.)

“The new article, even in debunking the first, also relied on anonymous sources, something noted by many of the outraged readers who wrote to me about this.

“Mr. Murphy said the second article could not be viewed as a true ‘corrective story,’ in Times parlance, since most of its elements were correct. And that article, he told me, advanced the overall information about the investigation. ‘We used it as a reporting moment,’ he said, not just a corrective.

“The original story’s sourcing was not taken lightly, he said. He was aware of who the sources were and that ‘they were trusted people that we had no reason to doubt — but they got it wrong.’ And, he said, the authors of the story, ‘are two of my best diggers,’ with reputations for caution and accuracy.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

Recent Posts

PCWorld executive editor Ung dies at 58

PCWorld executive editor Gordon Mah Ung, a tireless journalist we once described as a founding father…

1 day ago

CNBC taps Sullivan as “Power Lunch” co-anchor

CNBC senior vice president Dan Colarusso sent out the following on Monday: Before this year comes to…

2 days ago

Business Insider hires Brooks as standards editor

Business Insider editor in chief Jamie Heller sent out the following on Monday: I'm excited to share…

2 days ago

Is this the end of CoinDesk as we know it?

Former CoinDesk editorial staffer Michael McSweeney writes about the recent happenings at the cryptocurrency news site, where…

3 days ago

LinkedIn finance editor Singh departs

Manas Pratap Singh, finance editor for LinkedIn News Europe, has left for a new opportunity…

4 days ago

Washington Post announces start of third newsroom

Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray sent out the following on Friday: Dear All, Over the last…

5 days ago