Wastler: Other journalists have asked CNBC to take down video

Allen Wastler, the managing editor of CNBC.com, notes Monday that he often gets requests to take video of appearances on the business news network off its Web site, including some from other journalists who appear on the air.

Wastler writes, “That’s a serious issue. Publishing something onto a news Web site, in my view, is the same as publishing a newspaper article or broadcasting a television news program. You don’t go back and ‘revise’ it or make it disappear. That’s a creepy, almost Big Brother kind of thing.

“Yet we get requests to do just that (often by fellow journalists, which I find a little disturbing). The reasons range from the serious to the trivial. Somebody made a factual misstatement … that’s serious. But there are some who want videos down because they don’t feel they came off too well or they said something they shouldn’t have. Once someone wanted a piece down because they had a ‘bad hair’ day (not at CNBC … in my previous life).

“Of course if somebody on air said something factually wrong about a situation or another entity, the video should come down. It doesn’t do readers any good to have bad information on the site.

“But pulling video for the rest of the reasons? In some cases it could be viewed as a retraction of sorts. In others, just revisionist. Either way I resist it. Strongly.”

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