I never thought I would see the day where the National Review produces more responsible journalism than the mighty Washington Post, but here we are.
The right thing for WaPo to do would be to annotate the articles without alteration. Their prior positions on the Wuhan Lab theories are part of the discussion. Correcting them now is akin to wiping a conference room blackboard during a bathroom break because you're worried that it shows information that damages your credibility.
> Correcting them now is akin to wiping a conference room blackboard during a bathroom break because you're worried that it shows information that damages your credibility.
That's exactly what they're doing. Why wouldn't they? What are you going to do about it? What is anyone going to do about it? With the rise of constant, feed-based media sources and polarization of politics, there's hardly any incentive for media outlets to hold themselves to any standards. Hence why most journalism is garbage nowadays. The loss of objectivity and reason is one of the most tragic things about the modern world, imo. Question the media, question science, question conspiracy theories, question everything and stay skeptical. We have more than enough evidence now that groups with power and influence are interested in convincing you of things, not of helping you find your way to the truth.
Maybe this will get me downvoted, but I never had much issue with National Review. They write from a conservative perspective, but they aren’t hiding it - that’s literally the purpose of their publication. They also tend to write (not 100% of the time but 95%) in a pretty responsible way - quoting and referencing, trying to explain the other side’s position and then argue why it’s wrong or why the conservative opinion differs. They do occasionally have some less than stellar articles, but if you’re looking for opinions from the conservative side, it’s not a bad a source. Not a ton of hysteria or dogma. A handful of their writers have strong conservative beliefs from a Catholic perspective, but some are agnostic libertarians as well. Compared to other conservative media it’s pretty tame when it comes to sensationalism.
It sounds like you are under the impression that they simply changed the article, leaving it so that someone who reads it now will have no idea that it used to be different.
But according to the submission, they added a note explaining what was changed or removed and why.
I'm not under that impression, and I sought out the WaPo article itself prior to writing my comment.
I am in general an opponent of modifying primary source material, which is what the WaPo article has become. If these papers want to bash Tom Cotton they are more than welcome to do so, but they should leave the paper trail intact so that people can see the unadulterated trajectory of the discourse and evaluate it accordingly.
Journalists should not afford themselves the privilege of retroactively editing past writings in order to stay on the right side of the zeitgeist. In my mind, even with a note explaining the change, altering the paper trail of the discourse is worse than simply leaving the article intact with no added commentary.
The difference between this and published editions of books is that you don't eradicate past printings of a book when you release a new edition, but when you update a website you typically supplant the prior state.
I don't want to get too fanciful, but imagine buying a copy of Mein Kampf or Uncle Tom's Cabin and finding that the foreword describes significant textual modifications made in light of subsequent social awareness.
I'm not sure how you can claim something is debunked when the source say it was unlikely. It would be nice if journalists used words by their common understanding rather than as a way to silencing ideas they dislike.
Yeah, this pandemic shows me how widespread unscientific/illogical thinking is. I've seen HN commenters write "The Chinese government lies and hides stuff, therefore they must be hiding the truth that the virus is lab-made.". No! That's not how logic works!
Theres a lab in the city where it started, they killed their own scientist when he tried to warn people and they mess with inspection agency but its "unlikely" it comes from a lab ?
The right thing for WaPo to do would be to annotate the articles without alteration. Their prior positions on the Wuhan Lab theories are part of the discussion. Correcting them now is akin to wiping a conference room blackboard during a bathroom break because you're worried that it shows information that damages your credibility.