Broadsheet.ie & IT deleting articles relating to Kate's death

ciarafem

The online editor, Hugh Linehan, of the Irish Times has just published a carefully worded explanation of the reasons for retrospectively editing the original anonymous article written by Kate Fitzgerald:

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/mechanicalturk/2011/12/20/the-irishtimes-com-archive-and-kate-fitzgerald/

It ends by saying

We acknowledge the hurt, bewilderment and anger felt by the friends and family of Kate Fitzgerald over what has happened, and apologise for our part in contributing to that.

However, it does not contain a retraction about assertions in the anonymous article being factually inaccurate.

Rowley Birkin QC

Text of the piece for those on mobiles.

Hugh Linehan wrote:

The irishtimes.com archive and Kate Fitzgerald
HUGH LINEHAN

Journalism is a messy, imperfect trade. In the course of producing a daily newspaper or operating a news website, hundreds of decisions and judgment calls must be made every week. We try very hard to maintain the highest professional standards, to make the right call, to spot the potential pitfalls and to be fair to the people about whom we’re writing. Sometimes we fail. And when we do, we should hold up our hands and acknowledge those failures to our readers. Sometimes these mistakes cause distress to blameless people. And sometimes they can have serious legal and financial consequences for us and for our newspaper.

There has been a lot of highly critical public reaction, particularly on social media platforms, to the events surrounding our re-editing of an article originally published in the Irish Times’s newspaper edition of September 9th, 2011. The article had been published anonymously, but, as revealed in a piece by Peter Murtagh in the Weekend Review of November 26th, its author, Kate Fitzgerald, had taken her own life before it was published. The revelation of Kate’s identity in Peter’s interview with her parents, Tom and Sally Ann, set in motion a train of events: the re-editing of the first article the following Monday following legal advice; a clarification of the reason for that re-editing on Wednesday, and, on Saturday, an apology to Kate Fitzgerald’s former employers, the Communications Clinic, which stated that “significant assertions within the original piece were not factual”.

The Irish Times has been heavily criticised for its role in this sequence of events, most recently and seriously by Tom and Sally Ann Fitzgerald, who have written of “ the insensitivity of the Irish Times and its inability to grasp how its position has compounded our grief, and attempted to stilt the national debate on depression and suicide.”

It is neither appropriate nor possible for me to go into detail on the specific legal issues involved in this case. However, reasonable questions have been asked by readers about our policies on amending or altering the digital archive on irishtimes.com, and I hope I can go some way towards answering those.

Editors at The Irish Times are duty-bound to ensure the work they publish does not expose the newspaper to potential legal hazard. This responsibility does not end at the point of publication; if an error has been made and published, it also applies to the range of online platforms for which we are responsible.

When we make mistakes, we are often required to publish retractions in the Corrections and Clarifications slot on the Opinion page of The Irish Times, usually stating that our original assertions were not correct. Many of our writers have had such corrections published about their work, baldly stating its factual incorrectness, and offering apologies to those affected.

Increasingly, though, those seeking redress from newspapers for perceived misrepresentations, inaccuracies or worse are as interested in the digital record as in the print retraction.. If there’s a serious problem with an article, that problem is arguably being perpetuated by its continued availability to online readers. For publishers, the pressing question becomes whether they are making a bad situation even worse in the eyes of the law by keeping that article available online.

As a result, circumstances regularly arise where the digital record requires amending. Serious errors of fact can and should be corrected. If we have failed to meet our own standards of fairness to everyone involved in a particular story, we should redress that imbalance. When these issues are brought to our attention, we act on them (although we may not do so if the mistake is very minor; each correction takes a certain amount of time to carry out and we have limited resources).

These corrections and amendments are firstly applied to the irishtimes.com archive, which is a digital record of all content published via the newspaper or as breaking news since The Irish Times went online in 1996. This is the format in which most users find and read our archived content. (The archive does not currently include blogs, audio or video, but we hope to include them in the near future.)

When we make a correction, we try to make it as clear as possible to users of irishtimes.com that a post-publication change has been made; for the last two years, we have done so with a line at the bottom of the text indicating that this has happened. Recent events show that we need to be even clearer with that message, always including the date that the change was made, the reason for making the amendment and, where possible, marking the changed text.

The same principles apply to amendments made following legal advice, which would normally be given on the basis that the newspaper and website are unacceptably exposed to a potential risk of action. Such advice is usually but not always given on foot of a complaint from a member of the public. However, we are often limited in the level of information we can give to the user in these cases; to go into detail is often impossible without repeating the information which caused the problem in the first place.

The irishtimes.com archive is just one of the platforms for our content. The newspaper archive is a page-by-page version of all daily newspaper editions published since the foundation of The Irish Times in 1859. Some imperfections and gaps exist, but it’s a pretty complete record of the newspaper’s history. The epaper, the daily digital version of the newspaper, available to subscribers from around 4am every morning, is also based on newspaper pages. In addition to these, we send our articles to a number of syndication and archive services and we supply content feeds on a contractual basis to a number of third-party customers around the world. In all these cases, we’re contractually committed to alerting the parties when any legal issues arise. Similarly, the syndicated services we receive from the Guardian, the New York Times and others have alert systems in place when problems arise at their end.

When we have reason to believe that the newspaper may be at legal risk due to something we’ve published, certain processes kick in. The most straightforward is the editing or correcting of content on irishtimes.com itself. A further decision may be taken to carry out a legal retraction of content from the other services mentioned. This is a more complex process in terms of the number of organisations involved, but for readers it probably seems much blunter as, since the newspaper archive and epaper are based on newspaper pages, the legal retraction takes the form of a redaction or crude blotting out of the relevant article on the page, with the words “Legal Retraction” attached.

In the case of Kate Fitzgerald’s anonymous article of September 9th, following legal advice we were asked to edit it on the afternoon of Monday, November 28th. The original amendment line in the irishtimes.com archive read: ‘’This is an edited version of an Irish Times article originally published on September 9th, 20111″. Following complaints from some users, we re-wrote the line on Wednesday morning to read: “This article was originally published on September 9th in The Irish Times. It was re-edited on November 28th following legal advice.”

The concerns expressed by readers about the clarity of the original notification were justified – although suggestions that we were deliberately trying to conceal the changes were not. Arising from this, we’re now implementing stricter guidelines for making such changes as clear as possible to the user.

On the evening of Friday, December 2nd, we undertook a broader legal retraction across archive, epaper and other services, which took place over that weekend.

Since those events, and the apology to the Communications Clinic published on Saturday, December 3rd, I’ve been reading and sometimes engaging with the angry debate on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere about the rights and wrongs of what was done and what has happened. I and my colleagues, including the editor, Kevin O’Sullivan, have been very aware throughout of the criticism of The Irish Times on Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

In my own personal view, as an organisation we can be legitimately criticised for not engaging more openly and immediately with public concerns about our actions. And people are entitled to their opinions about the rights or wrongs of those actions. We are to some degree constrained in what we can write about the details of this case, so it’s understandable if some readers believe we’re being self-serving or narrowly legalistic in responding (or not responding) to questions. Are there things that could or should have been done differently over the past few weeks? Yes. We need to learn from those to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again.

However, unfortunate and painful though these events have been, we as professional journalists and publishers took what we believed to be the best action from an ethical and legal perspective. We believe that to have acted otherwise would not have been brave, but irresponsible. We acknowledge the hurt, bewilderment and anger felt by the friends and family of Kate Fitzgerald over what has happened, and apologise for our part in contributing to that.

Hugh Linehan is online editor of The Irish Times

oceanclub

The main substantive point this refuses to deal with it: how do they know that Kate Fitzgerald was not factual, from who/where did they get the opposing "facts", and why could they not tell her parents, even in private, exactly what was not factual about it?

P.

ciarafem

oceanclub wrote: »

The main substantive point this refuses to deal with it: how do they know that Kate Fitzgerald was not factual, from who/where did they get the opposing "facts", and why could they not tell her parents, even in private, exactly what was not factual about it?

P.

Legally a dead person can not be defamed so that leaves it open to the 'other side' to say what they like about the dead person.

In this case there are a number of blogs from friends of Kate Fitzgerald, and her parents statement on Broadsheet.ie, which do not portray a picture of someone who was mentally unbalanced.

There is a glowing tribute to her from a female friend of hers which can be assessed at the Irish Times Wall on Facebook, which is worth reading.

The real problem in this case is down to the simple fact that Ms Fizgerald is dead and can not defend herself. It used to be a cultural norm in Ireland to show respect for the dead.

In an era in which the Max Cliffords of this world control the media agenda, what has happened is not that surprising.

strandroad

ciarafem wrote: »

The online editor, Hugh Linehan, of the Irish Times has just published a carefully worded explanation of the reasons for retrospectively editing the original anonymous article written by Kate Fitzgerald:

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/mechanicalturk/2011/12/20/the-irishtimes-com-archive-and-kate-fitzgerald/

It ends by saying However, it does not contain a retraction about assertions in the anonymous article being factually inaccurate.

It still does not give any answer as to why they saw it appropriate to maul the original anonymous piece and to brand it a lie (when the author and the employer were both anonymous). The problems only started when Kate was named in Peter Murtaugh's piece. If he wrote "Grace", "Grace's parents" etc. there would be no case. Her name was the link and it was not her who published it. If IT felt compelled to sever this link, they should have edited their own piece as to remove any identifying details. The cat would be out of the bag, of course, as her name was already out, but so was the content of her letter.

Why did they choose to scapegoat her instead is beyond me, especially that by disregarding her story and apologising for her (against her family wishes!) they defied the whole purpose of the letter and clearly confirmed that depression subjects you to victimisation and bullying - even posthumous bullying from those you put you trust into.

The Sparrow

It's an interesting read and I generally do like Hugh Linehan as a journalist. But it only has a very narrow focus that is mostly concerned with the editing of the original article. I was not happy with The Irish Times about that but I could see their logic for it and I was not thinking of stopping buying the newspaper over it.

Then the apology to The Communications Clinic happened and that was the tipping point for me and so many othesr it would seem. And for whatever reason, the IT has steadfastly refused to explain that decision. They have never once shown any evidence that any of what Kate Fitzgerald said was not factual. Even the family say that the editor refused to furnish any evidence directly to them to prove what The Irish Times alleged in the apology.

So this article is fine for what it is and there are some good general points about editing online editions. But it is a bit like writing an article about a loose lock on the stable door a week after the horse has bolted.

There are way more pressing concerns that The Irish Times need to address before I will consider buying it again.

The Sweeper

I actually need to sit and reflect on this for quite some time because Hugh Linehan's blog frankly gives rise to more questions than it answers.

ciarafem

The first one is about the death of a 16 year old girl, who was an aspiring model. After being jilted she threw herself under a speeding train. The Irish Independent has coverage of the story http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/jilted-teen-posted-suicide-plan-on-facebook-2969415.html
The article states that

After the verdict the teenager's family issued a statement speaking of their continued "devastation". "We have received an overwhelming amount of support from family and friends," it said.

This story of the young girl’s death shows the sad aftermath for her family and the importance of social support for the bereaved family.

The second story is covered in both the Irish Independent and the Daily Mail. It concerns a court action for libel by the former girlfriend of Sven Ericsson and Trevor Nunn. The court dismissed the action for libel on the basis that

The judge said he accepted the article was ‘unflattering and even insulting’, but that was not the same as defamatory – which would mean adversely and substantially affecting others’ views of Miss Dell’Olio.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2076839/Nancy-Dell-Olio-loses-court-action-Libel-claim-Daily-Mail-thrown-judge.html#ixzz1h9qZEWjT
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/celebrity-news-gossip/court-rules-that-newspaper-did-not-libel-nancy-dellrsquoolio-referring-to-her-as-man-eater-2969556.html

I wonder if the Irish Times had applied the same standard as the judge would they have published the liar accusation against Kate Fitzgerald?

CramCycle

Originally Posted by Hugh Linehan
The irishtimes.com archive and Kate Fitzgerald
HUGH LINEHAN
And when we do, we should hold up our hands and acknowledge those failures to our readers. Sometimes these mistakes cause distress to blameless people. And sometimes they can have serious legal and financial consequences for us and for our newspaper.

Doesn't change the fact that you have not held your hands up yet

and, on Saturday, an apology to Kate Fitzgerald’s former employers, the Communications Clinic, which stated that “significant assertions within the original piece were not factual”.

Why has there been no clarification of which parts are "not factual" as you claim and how do you know this?

It is neither appropriate nor possible for me to go into detail on the specific legal issues involved in this case. However, reasonable questions have been asked by readers about our policies on amending or altering the digital archive on irishtimes.com, and I hope I can go some way towards answering those.

Would I be incorrect in saying that you can at least clarify wether it was the position of the times to edit the article, out of fear of a possible legal situation or is it the case of an ongoing legal situation, I can't see how this would cause issue.

When we make mistakes, we are often required to publish retractions in the Corrections and Clarifications slot on the Opinion page of The Irish Times, usually stating that our original assertions were not correct. Many of our writers have had such corrections published about their work, baldly stating its factual incorrectness, and offering apologies to those affected.

And The times has done such a thing in this case but has not actually gone onto show that the original views were incorrect. A more appropriate redress, in my opinion, would have been to state that until such time as you could show whether the article contained untruths that you would edit out those parts that were in dispute until it was resolved. Instead The Times has called Ms.Fitzgerald, a person who has yet to have a bad word spoken about her by anyone (lending credence to her stature in the eyes of many as a person of good character) bar The Times themselves, a liar.

to go into detail is often impossible without repeating the information which caused the problem in the first place.

Not really

Since those events, and the apology to the Communications Clinic published on Saturday, December 3rd, I’ve been reading and sometimes engaging with the angry debate on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere about the rights and wrongs of what was done and what has happened. I and my colleagues, including the editor, Kevin O’Sullivan, have been very aware throughout of the criticism of The Irish Times on Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

I'd like to know what parts of Ms. Fitzgeralds article you had to apologise for, therefore allowing us to know which parts, for those of us who have read the original piece, were not factual.

Hugh Linehan is online editor of The Irish Times

Dear Mr. Linehan,

I have bought your paper almost everyday for 15years (there were a few days in my time in college when I got it for free).

This year you have lost another lifelong customer.

Sincerely

ciarafem

CramCycle wrote: »

Dear Mr. Linehan,

I have bought your paper almost everyday for 15years (there were a few days in my time in college when I got it for free).

This year you have lost another lifelong customer.

Sincerely

There is a very good blog at http://ourmaninstockholm.wordpress.com/ which is worth reading.

ciarafem

I have just read another excellent blog on the issue http://www.joyofwriting.net/blog/?p=746#more-746

It has some very interesting suggestions about how to respond to the attempts to stifle open discussion on the matter.

Rowley Birkin QC

The plot thickens.

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/12/21/for-whom-the-bell-trolls/

broadsheet.ie wrote:

A new troll (above) recently joined the debate about the fallout from the redaction of Kate Fitzgerald’s article by the Irish Times and subsequent apology to The Communications Clinic.

Called ‘You’re Kidding Me’ he/she has ridiculed those seeking answers from the Irish Times and The Communications Clinic.

So far so whatever.

But this troll also seemed to be privy to some inside information about the case. And in the middle of all the sneering came this veiled threat:

Also – out of curiosity, and Broadsheet, have your defamation lawyers at the ready…



Which we felt was a little, oh what’s the word? Familiar.

So we checked the troll’s IP address.

The registered owner is Matheson Ormsby Prentice, 70 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2. The country’s best-known defamation lawyers. A leader in their field, you might say.
And whose clients include…the Irish Times.

Ain’t life grand?

wixfjord

Unbelievable.
This ****ing country.

Broadsheet have played a blinder.

mikom

Parasites on parasites on parasites.

seamus

Looks like someone in MOPS will be getting a P45 for christmas

eviltwin

I wonder what Kate's family think of all this being dragged up day in day out. Must be very distressing for them.

Fear Uladh

eviltwin wrote: »

I wonder what Kate's family think of all this being dragged up day in day out. Must be very distressing for them.

Broadsheet are just showing the parasites up for what they are.

I'm sure the family would like more awareness on what is going on.

eviltwin

Fear Uladh wrote: »

Broadsheet are just showing the parasites up for what they are.

I'm sure the family would like more awareness on what is going on.

Yes I am sure they want to get some kind of closure but is all this oneupmanship really the way to go about it?

I just wonder if Broadsheet have lost sight of their original aim here? Whatever their motive its starting to make for uncomfortable reading.

strandroad

seamus wrote: »

Looks like someone in MOPS will be getting a P45 for christmas

Unless they are well connected and well versed in the whole debacle.

What a snakes nest.

The Sparrow

mhge wrote: »

What a snakes nest.

Absolutely. This whole affair is such a mess.

Hell of country we have here.

Dionysus

Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »

The plot thickens.

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/12/21/for-whom-the-bell-trolls/

broadsheet.ie wrote:

A new troll (above) recently joined the debate about the fallout from the redaction of Kate Fitzgerald’s article by the Irish Times and subsequent apology to The Communications Clinic.

Called ‘You’re Kidding Me’ he/she has ridiculed those seeking answers from the Irish Times and The Communications Clinic.

So far so whatever.

But this troll also seemed to be privy to some inside information about the case. And in the middle of all the sneering came this veiled threat:

Also – out of curiosity, and Broadsheet, have your defamation lawyers at the ready…



Which we felt was a little, oh what’s the word? Familiar.

So we checked the troll’s IP address.

The registered owner is Matheson Ormsby Prentice, 70 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2. The country’s best-known defamation lawyers. A leader in their field, you might say.
And whose clients include…the Irish Times.

Ain’t life grand?

Wow.

CramCycle

eviltwin wrote: »

I wonder what Kate's family think of all this being dragged up day in day out. Must be very distressing for them.

I am sure it is disturbing but I can only imagine that the entire public outcry against those that have defamed their daughter in such a way is at least comforting to them.

In such that the last word on their daughters life will not be an apology to her former bosses calling her a liar but it will be a push to achieve what I presume was her main aim with the beginning of her annoymous article. Raising awareness, more importantly to show that the dismissal of Depression and the bullying of sufferers is no longer just frowned upon in general but can no longer be condoned by any member of society, no matter who they are or what they do.

I honestly hope that her final act was not completely in vein, as those who are higher up in Communications Clinic appear to wish it to be, like it has been for so many before her and so many after her.

ciarafem

Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »

The plot thickens.

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/12/21/for-whom-the-bell-trolls/

This has just been posted on Broadsheet.ie

John 'Preposterous' Ryan on December 21, 2011 at 3:39 pm said: I did see it as a threat (consistent with the many we have got since this began) and yes I had qualms. The comment was one of a number under different names from the same IP address, registered to MOP. Full ironic disclosure: I once went on a libel training course at that firm.

This story is getting even more murky.

copacetic

Personally I think broadsheet has let themselves down badly with posting of someone's IP address and trying to imply they were the Irish times defamation lawyers. Which appears to be untrue.

Firstly the comments from the person/persons didn't come across as particularly trolling, they just disagreed with the majority. Secondly it means if anyone comments on a broadsheet story they have to be aware that if they don't like it they could publish your IP and where/who you are or who you work for. Which is hardly good for open discussion.

They've lost most of the high ground imo and going after the conspiracy theory/mob audience is tabloid.

hardCopy

This was posted by The Irish Times on their facebook page:

The Irish Times wrote:

The following mail was sent to John Ryan of Broadsheet 15 minutes ago by Hugh Linehan:

John,

I was going to post this as a comment, but thought it might be better to contact you directly. However, I have no problem with it being published. Matheson Ormsby Prentice do not and have never provided any legal services to The Irish Times in relation to defamation. They do provide some services on pension matters.

It's up to your readers to decide whether your insinuation of some sort of trolling conspiracy has a shred of credibility. In my view it's a pathetic attempt to squeeze some more juice for Broadsheet out of a story that deserves to be treated with seriousness and respect.

Wherever your anonymous commenter was posting from, he/she actually had some valid points to make. The fact that you chose to set a mob on him/her because of so-called trolling (in this case, happening to have a different opinion from the majority) says a lot about the way you run your site.

Hugh

CramCycle

copacetic wrote: »

They've lost most of the high ground imo and going after the conspiracy theory/mob audience is tabloid.

If they publish an apology, state where their facts came from and why they believed them to be interconnected then I can't see how they have lost the moral high ground although admittedly there response was somewhat childish and tabloid like.

Not that Mr.Linehan is any better with the personal attacks, you keep the moral high ground by sticking to the facts as you know them, if that changes then you can change with it, it's all very well for him to go around asking for seriousness and respect after calling a dead woman a liar and then not backing it up.

Robbo

hardCopy wrote: »

This was posted by The Irish Times on their facebook page:

It's usually Hayes Solicitors who act on behalf of the Times in defamation matters. If MOP have been engaged, I'd look elsewhere in this matter.

There is the small irony as well of Tony O'Reilly being on the MOP notepaper as Chairman. It's cosy up at the top in Official Ireland.

Dudess

What's all the "this country" stuff about? Can anything not be blamed on an intangible entity?

But anyway, I thought at the start there was going to be a mob mentality re this case, but I think the anger is justified. That said, things are unlikely all that they seem...

Must say though: no doubt some of those singing Broadsheet's praises now are those who were calling for its head a couple of weeks ago for having the audacity to keep shtum after legal threats.

AnonoBoy

Broadsheet need to learn how to check facts. :rolleyes:

ciarafem

STATEMENT BY TOM FITZGERALD, father of Kate Fitzgerald, on http://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/12/22/to-journalists/#comment-99808

To Journalists

10:26 am December 22, 2011 Admin

By Tom Fitzgerald

After our letter published here last Friday Sally and I sent this press release out to a number of reporters. It was not picked up by any traditional paper. The Irish Times wrote a response in its Saturday paper and there has been an avalanche of response on its Facebook page.
The Irish Times ignored the input of hundreds of its own readers until Tuesday.
Hugh Linehan, IT online editor, responded to those who felt that it was cowardly to call a dead young woman a liar, knowing she was no longer able to defend herself.
The readers of the Irish Times saw Hugh Linehan’s article for what it was, a wandering of worthless words. It was neither adequate as an apology nor as an explanation.
The general view from those responding was that the Irish Times had let itself down, and had devalued journalism as a whole. They raised serious questions about who controls the press in Ireland.
What is quite disturbing to me and to Sally, as Kate’s parents, is that this important story, while creating an unprecedented online storm, has been totally ignored by the traditional media. One senior Irish Times journalist said that “one dog does not eat another”. That is to say that one newspaper does not attack another. Does this explain why other media do not cover this story?
Is it not in the interest of the whole profession to have higher standards in journalism? When the icon of journalism fails to meet basic standards of journalistic ethics, surely the rest of the press should talk about it. It tarnishes you as well. Surely, the basic tenet of journalism is that when there is huge interest shown by the public, it is a bona fide story and you cover it. Beyond journalistic ethics, a tested story sells papers. Must everything move online as traditional media falters? So where are you on this?
To me, this appears to be a battle between traditional journalism where feedback is limited, and online journalism where feedback is both instant and relentless. So far, traditional journalism is losing badly.
I’d hate to see the Irish Times go down because of this. We need an icon, we need a standard and the rest of you journalists need to ensure that the Irish Times keeps that standard going. It’s time you stood up and voiced your views on the ethics of journalism in Ireland.
Tom Fitzgerald, December 22.