The New York Times is drawing “a clear line” against the practice of news sources being allowed to approve quotations in stories after the fact.
The practice, known as quote approval, “puts so much control over the content of journalism in the wrong place,” the executive editor Jill Abramson told me in an interview. “We need a tighter policy.”
Times editors have been working on the policy for months, she noted — ever since a July story by Jeremy Peters revealed the practice as a widespread one that included many reporters.
A memorandum on Thursday says that “demands for after-the-fact quote approval by sources and their press aides have gone too far.”
“The practice risks giving readers a mistaken impression that we are ceding too much control over a story to our sources,” it says. “In its most extreme form, it invites meddling by press aides and others that goes far beyond the traditional negotiations between reporter and source over the terms of an interview.”
It includes this firm directive: “So starting now, we want to draw a clear line on this. Citing Times policy, reporters should say no if a source demands, as a condition of an interview, that quotes be submitted afterward to the source or a press aide to review, approve or edit.”
http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/in-new-policy-the-times-forbids-after-the-fact-quote-approval/?smid=tw-share
