Written by: Sam Whiting and Megan Mantica
Wednesday afternoon we retracted a previously published story from our webpage.
We made this decision after the author of the article submitted a new story containing several inaccuracies in directly quoted material. This is a serious breach of journalistic integrity because the value of news is determined by its accuracy.
As a precaution, we removed the original article because we no longer held confidence in the reporter’s understanding of journalistic fundamentals, specifically those dealing with direct quotes.
We accept responsibility for publishing a story that does not meet basic journalistic standards.
We apologize to our readers, reporters and sources. We value the accuracy of our publication and will check with our reporters to make sure that they have an adequate understanding about the importance of truth and accuracy in order to be sure all of our published stories meet journalistic standards.